On Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the 2021 ruling of a federal district court in Texas that ExxonMobil must pay amore than $14 million penalty, following a citizen-lawsuit against the company.

Environment Texas and the Sierra Club had sued ExxonMobil over thousands of unauthorized emissions episodes at the company’s Baytown complex east of Houston between October 2005 and September 2013.

In background material for the decision, the court noted that “it is undisputed that Exxon has a history of repeatedly violating” its permits issued under the Clean Air Act and that the company “committed on average more than one permit violation per day, resulting in the unlawful emissions of nearly 10 million pounds of pollutants.”

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