A former U.S. Department of Justice attorney who prosecuted and won the massive racketeering case against Big Tobacco said she believes the DOJ now has enough evidence to pursue a conspiracy case against Big Oil.

Sharon Eubanks, who now runs her own law firm, made the comments in response to questioning by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at today’s Senate Budget Committee’s hearing on fossil fuel industry disinformation. The hearing was called as a complement to the boatload of new internal oil industry documents released yesterday.

“If a large corporation knowingly produces a product that gets me sick or kills me,” said Sanders, “what are the legal grounds that we can hold them accountable for?”

“The federal government [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization] statute, of course, has provisions that we used in the tobacco litigation,” Eubanks said. “Conspiracy is a good claim to look at” at the state level, she added.

“If you were Attorney General of the United States, would you proceed in that direction?” Sanders asked.

“I would, yes. No question,” said Eubanks.

Eubanks made the same arguments in 2021, when she testified before the House Oversight Committee that the fossil fuel industry should be held legally accountable for climate denial and delay. But on Tuesday, Senate Democrats released hundreds of new internal documents obtained by subpoenas issued to Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Chamber of Commerce.

Democrats argued today that the previously unseen documents bolster the case for federal legal action against major oil and gas companies, whose executives knew their products would cause catastrophic global warming as early as 1959.

“After seeing the findings of our investigation, I’m convinced that a society-wide challenge will be necessary for us to hold Big Oil accountable for profiting for decades from carbon-fueled climate change,” said Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who led the House Oversight Committee’s investigation and testified at today’s hearing.

After confirming that Eubanks would pursue a conspiracy case were she attorney general, Sanders asked her why current Attorney General Merrick Garland wasn’t pursuing an investigation. Eubanks, perhaps understandably, pivoted. “It’s probably not really appropriate for me to comment on that.” 

But if a federal lawsuit against Big Oil were pursued, Eubanks emphasized, the goal wouldn’t necessarily revolve around forcing companies to pay millions in damages.

“Money’s great, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “But getting a company to change the way it did business—that’s what we got out of tobacco.”

Eubanks also said in her testimony that the government’s successful case against the tobacco industry could be used as a foundation for building a case against fossil fuel companies. The tobacco industry’s illegal practices reveal “striking similarities” to the behavior of the petroleum industry, she said.

“There exists solid evidentiary basis to move forward with a request to the Department of Justice to investigate the actions of the fossil fuel industry,” she said. “Just as the Department of Justice investigated the tobacco industry and ultimately filed a civil racketeering complaint against the industry, given the similarities of the fraudulent acts, and the government’s successful case against tobacco, there is adequate foundation for building a case.”

She also noted that, absent a federal government lawsuit, legal action is already being taken worldwide: “More than 1,800 lawsuits have been filed regarding climate liability worldwide,” she said. “We should not waste any more time wringing our hands about what can be done.”

You can find the full hearing, and all of the witnesses’ testimonies, here.

Further takes on today’s hearing:

• Amy Westervelt said Big Oil is not copying Big Tobacco

A hill I will die on, and have died on many times: Big Oil is not "copying Big Tobacco's playbook." Big Oil is using the playbook Big PR crafted 100+ years ago for every industry that relies on polluting and/or extracting from the commons with impunity to remain profitable.

• Bill McKibben said the hearing marked a shift for establishment Democrats against gas

Natural gas, [Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin] said, “isn’t green and it isn’t clean.” Indeed, explained Whitehouse, the industry’s master plan is to “disguise natural gas as renewable, to lock their fossil fuels into our energy future.”

This is an incredibly important point for senior Democrats to be making, because natural gas has always been the Democratic vice. Coal was obviously filthy, but natural gas, when you burn it, produces half as much carbon. Therefore it became the Democratic pathway to reducing emissions while not really offending the fossil fuel industry. Go back and look at Barack Obama’s State of the Union addresses—nearly every one contains a paean to the rise of fracked gas.”

• Dharna Noor said Republicans relied on outdated climate denial talking points

But budget committee Republicans pushed back on the very premise of the hearing. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa senator and the committee’s top Republican, said it is “undeniable that … fossil fuels are critical to our energy security”.

Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson, meanwhile, claimed that CO2 is a “plant food”, implying it has positive aspects. It’s a talking point that has long been promoted by fossil fuel industry-funded think tanks that aim to sow doubt about climate change.

“I’m not a climate-change denier, I’m just not a climate-change alarmist,” Johnson added.

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