ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit against California, alleging that the state’s climate laws violate free speech.
The laws, SB 253 and SB 261, require the company to “espouse California’s preferred framing for issues of immense public concern,” ExxonMobil said in the filing. The statutes “serve as a mouthpiece for ideas with which it disagrees,” the company explained, noting the policies “compel ExxonMobil to trumpet California’s preferred message even though ExxonMobil believes the speech is misleading and misguided.”
Upon signing SB 253 in 2023, which requires businesses with an annual revenue of more than $1 billion to disclose greenhouse gas emissions, Governor Gavin Newsom said the policy “demonstrates California’s continued leadership with bold responses to the climate crisis, turning information transparency into climate action.”
Similarly, SB 261 requires businesses with total annual revenues over $500 million to develop a report on climate-related financial risks. Newsom said that it “will illustrate the real risks of climate change for businesses operating in California and will encourage them to adopt practices that seek to minimize and avoid these risks.”
“Starting in 2026, S.B. 253 will compel ExxonMobil to supplement its speech with information ExxonMobil believes will, at best, be unnecessary and counterproductive,” the lawsuit adds, going on to explain that SB 261 will “require the company to engage in granular conjecture about unknowable future developments and to publicly disseminate that speculation on its website.”
“California may believe that companies that meet the statutes’ revenue thresholds are uniquely responsible for climate change,” the company wrote, “but the First Amendment categorically bars it from forcing ExxonMobil to speak in service of that misguided viewpoint.”
In January, Exxon filed a lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta and several environmental groups, alleging that Bonta and the groups organized a defamation campaign against its plastic recycling efforts. The action was a response to a legal challenge filed by Bonta and environmental groups in September 2024.
