Bucks County Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo said he’s reconsidered his earlier endorsement of the county’s lawsuit against some of the world’s largest oil companies and no longer supports the effort.
“I have considered this for the past seven or eight days, and at this point, I would like to withdraw my support for the lawsuit,” DiGirolamo told the commissioner’s chairwoman, Diane Ellis-Marseglia, at a recent meeting.
The minority board member did not elaborate on his change of position and did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, the county said DiGirolamo’s withdrawal does not impact the board’s direction.
“This does not affect the County’s position on the lawsuit,” the statement read. “Climate change remains among the most important issues of our time, and we have no intentions of giving up this fight.”
The commissioners announced the ambitious lawsuit during a May 25 press conference, alleging Exxon Mobile, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConcoPhillips, Philips 66 and the American Petroleum Institute deceived the public for decades about the dangers of their products.
“These companies have known since at least the 1950s that their ways of doing business were having calamitous effects on our planet and rather than change what they were doing or raise the alarm, they lied to all of us,” DiGirolamo said at the time.
The suit was filed in the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas. No damage amount was specified.
Following the announcement, the America Petroleum Institute, a trade group for oil and natural gas companies, called the allegations “meritless and a waste of taxpayers’ money.”
The county said the law firm that took the case is working on a contingency basis and there is no charge unless it wins the lawsuit.
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