Attorneys vying for venue in Shell, Exxon groundwater class action
Oil companies tricked Congress into passing dangerous amendments to the Clean Air Act 15 years ago, according to attorney Christine Moody of the Korein Tillery firm.
Moody claims in a proposed class action suit that Shell Oil, Exxon and Mobil persuaded Congress to adopt a new recipe for gasoline although the oil companies knew an ingredient would contaminate groundwater.
The oil companies “demonstrated their willingness to use any means to place their economic interest above the health, property and well-being of the people of the United States,” Moody wrote in a Sept. 28 complaint.
Shell Oil and Exxon Mobil responded that the plaintiffs sought to replace national water quality standards with standards of their own devising.
For the moment the case rests at U.S. District Court in East St. Louis, but neither side wants it to remain there.