Daily Mail report (2016): “[US] Attorney General Loretta Lynch has considered taking legal action against climate change deniers. The United States' top lawyer told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the Justice Department has 'discussed' the possibility of a civil lawsuit against the fossil fuel industry. She said any information her office has received has been sent to the FBI in a bid to build a case. Her comments came as she was questioned by Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island.
Whitehouse said: “The similarities between the mischief of the tobacco industry pretending that the science of tobacco's dangers was unsettled and the fossil fuel industry pretending that the science of carbon emissions' dangers is unsettled has been remarked on widely, particularly by those who study the climate denial apparatus that the fossil fuel industry has erected. Under President Clinton, the Department of Justice brought and won a civil RICO action against the tobacco industry for its fraud. Under President Obama, the Department of Justice has done nothing so far about the climate denial scheme. A request for action by the Department of Justice has been referred by you to the FBI. My question to you is other than civil forfeitures and matters attendant to a criminal case, are there other circumstances in which a civil matter under the authority of the Department of Justice has been referred to the FBI?”
In response, Lynch replied: “Senator, thank you for raising that issue, and thank you for your work in this area. I know your commitment is deep. This matter has been discussed. We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action on. I'm not aware of a civil referral at this time. She added: “I will look into that and get back to you, but I'm not aware of a civil referral outside of the one that you just raised,” added Lynch” (Wills Robinson, “Attorney General Loretta Lynch has “considered taking action against climate change deniers””, Daily Mail, 11 March 2016: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3485864/Attorney-General-Loretta-Lynch-considered-taking-legal-action-against-climate-change-deniers.html ).
[Editor: Non-corporate commentators are free to spread false climate change denial in the US under the First Amendment that guarantees free speech. Indeed, in general, the importance of freedom of speech for science, scholarship, societal risk management and democracy means that mendacious, climate change denying, effective climate change denying and climate genocide-complicit Mainstream media, political and academic presstitutes should suffer no pecuniary or physical punishment for their lies, but should merely suffer the public ignominy from expertly-informed judicial exposure. However, by way if example, fossil fuel corporations have a legal obligation not to mislead their customers, their shareholders and indeed future shareholders].