Recently, U.S. District Judge Silvia Carreño-Coll dismissed an amalgamation of climate lawsuits filed by 37 Puerto Rican municipalities against American energy producers. Led by the municipality of Bayamón, lawyers sought to hold American oil and gas companies liable for infrastructure damages caused by 2017’s Hurricane Maria. The premise of the lawsuits was that oil and gas producers coordinated to hide the environmental effects of fossil fuels in the research on climate change. 

The court concluded the municipalities had waited too long, blowing past the four-year statute of limitations for racketeering claims. While the municipalities plan to appeal, this time limit importantly sheds light on climate lawsuit losses in the past few years: it exposes the stark legal limits of climate litigation and the way some climate activists are twisting and abusing our judicial system for their own policy gain.

The Puerto Rico lawsuit, first filed in 2022, broke new ground by including Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and antitrust charges, novel claims in climate litigation that hinge on criminal coordination to deceive the public about widely-known facts around emissions and climate change.

For actual RICO charges, prosecutors must prove that the defendant has engaged in a “pattern of racketeering activity” within a criminal enterprise. Further, for civil RICO cases like this one, existing law upheld by the Supreme Court states that plaintiffs must bring forward a suit within four years from when the injury occurred or was discovered.

The municipalities argued that the statute of limitations here should be tolled because companies concealed critical information from the public. Judge Carreño-Coll found that reasoning flimsy, in part because the public scientific information around man-made climate change goes back to the 1970s and has been widely discussed and debated by U.S. officials for years. In 1970, Puerto Rico specifically passed the “Environmental Public Policy Act of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,” which was amended in 1973, 1999, and 2004, respectively. As she noted, the doctrine of “fraudulent concealment” requires concrete evidence that information was hidden and the plaintiffs simply failed in its burden of proving that risks were hidden. Here, abundant public reporting already existed and municipalities had a duty to investigate, not stall.

The ruling underscores a larger truth: Statutes of limitations aren’t just technicalities, but are core to ensuring fairness in our legal system. Without them, defendants of all sorts could face perpetual liability for actions debated, litigated, and regulated decades earlier.

Climate activists now face their eleventh straight dismissal in emissions tort litigation. Courts across the country have consistently rejected the theory that energy producers can be treated like a criminal cartel. In January, a judge in New York dismissed New York City’s climate lawsuit, writing that the City contradicts itself when claiming deception, yet arguing that “there is near universal consensus that global warming is primarily caused, or at least accelerated, by the burning of fossil fuels.” A similar dismissal in August in Charleston, South Carolina involved another statute of limitations issue, as the city’s 2020 lawsuit also blew past a three-year statute of limitations under South Carolina’s Unfair Trade Practices Act.

For these lawsuits and others – like Honolulu’s ongoing 2020 suit that has long passed a two-year deadline to act – the statute of limitations is critical for determining cases of harm. However, a mountain of evidence going back decades, from the 1978 National Climate Program Act and even back to a 1965 speech from President Johnson, recognizes the possibility of climate risks from an increase in carbon dioxide. 

U.S. federal law does not outlaw oil and gas activities, as fossil fuels still account for 84% of total U.S. primary energy production in 2023. Even plaintiff states in these lawsuits use fossil fuels: 46% of New York state’s energy is through natural gas and 78.8% of Hawaii’s electricity in 2023 was generated using fossil fuels. Because of the nature of oil and gas, with its risks and universal importance to our economy, security, and affordability, it is clear that none of these criminal deception claims hold water.

Judge Carreño-Coll’s opinion dismantled the idea that Puerto Rico was uniquely “targeted” by energy companies, exposing how RICO and antitrust allegations have been weaponized against American energy producers. She also reminded the plaintiffs that courts cannot assume the role of legislatures by designing carbon policies and issuing sweeping payouts from the bench.

Ultimately, Judge Carreño-Coll’s ruling is a reality check for extreme climate activists looking to force state courts into the roles reserved for Congress and the EPA. The dismissal highlights the dangers of treating the legal system as a blunt instrument of climate activism. By cutting through legally unsound claims, Judge Carreño-Coll protected the integrity of the courts, the long-standing legal principles of limitation statutes and reminded us that real solutions must come from policymakers, not flimsy litigation.

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