Exxon Mobil prevails in lawsuit over climate regulations

NEW YORK — Exxon Mobil won Tuesday in a closely watched lawsuit over the costs of climate change, with a judge saying there was no proof the energy giant duped investors about the toll that regulations could take on its business. “But Exxon Mobil is in the business of producing energy, and this is a securities fraud case, not a climate change case.” Exxon Mobil Corp. hailed the ruling in a trial that it said stemmed from a “baseless investigation.” “We provided our investors with accurate information on the risks of climate change,” the Irving, Texas-based company said in a statement. “Lawsuits that waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money do nothing to advance meaningful actions that reduce the risks of climate change.” James, however, said the case “laid out how Exxon made materially false, misleading and confusing representations to the American people about the company’s response to climate change regulations.” “The oil giant never took seriously the severe economic impact that climate change regulations would have on the company, contrary to what they were telling the public,” the Democrat said in a statement. Exxon Mobil has used two different metrics to account for potential carbon costs: a “proxy cost” for predicting how regulations worldwide might reduce demand for oil and gas, and a “greenhouse gas cost” used to figure how local regulations might affect specific projects. “We tried to understand how this was going to affect everything.” He said Exxon Mobil’s system for gauging climate risks and costs that was “as robust as we could make it at the time, and continued to try to improve it.” The judge noted there was no testimony from any actual investors who claimed to have been deceived.