Letter: Fossil-fuel defender misleads on the law

As a member of the state’s Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission, I wish to respond to the misleading letter by Phil Goldberg (“Court ruled against climate-change lawsuits,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, May 10).

Goldberg’s law firm represents Big Tobacco, and his letter is straight out of the Big Tobacco playbook his firm helped write.

The current wave of climate-liability lawsuits seeks to hold fossil-fuel companies accountable under state law for knowingly producing and promoting products that they knew would lead to the climate damages communities, industries and taxpayers are facing today.

The cases rely — as Denise Antolini pointed out — on well-established legal tools developed to protect the public from corporations that manufacture dangerous products, and to hold those companies accountable for false and deceptive advertising (“Climate- change litigation for Hawaii?” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, May 5).

The law requires companies to warn the public about dangers involved in the use of products they manufacture. Protecting the public from dangerous products is one of the most important purposes of state law.

The case Goldberg mentioned involved technical issues of federal common law regulating emissions from power plants and other facilities. They did not mention — much less discuss, much less eliminate — the state law issues raised by the current lawsuits.

Rick Fried

Downtown Honolulu