Age of Discovery

Bitter, resentful middle-aged whiners often complain that we live in an age where nothing new can be discovered because that job’s been done by generations of curious people with money and political backs. Besides ever more gadgets and apps, there’s nothing new out there, these whiners say and I know this because I am one of them.

Imagine my surprise, then, upon the discovery of, well, new discoveries. We are not out of curious minds yet, or should I say desperate minds because it’s desperation that is driving the new discoveries. That’s what happens when you don’t really think things through before doing them.

Let’s start with that transition darling, California, which has somehow managed to plunge itself into a budget deficit of $45 billion in two short years. The major achievement has few parallels, especially since those two short years ago, the state boasted a surplus of $97.5 billion as it emerged from lockdowns and got back into gear.

Anyway, now that the deficit is a fact, what’s a transition darling to do? Well, spending cuts are the obvious choice. Yet it’s not the only choice. Not when you’re suing Big Oil for spreading misinformation, which is exactly what California is doing.

And because California also has a new law that allows it to take away the profits of companies found to have breached consumer protection and false advertising legislation, it’s trying to do just that. The transition darling has found a pretty neat way to fill its budget canyon.

According to a statement by California’s Attorney General this week, the five Big Oil companies he is suing are guilty of “false advertising and misleading environmental marketing by some of the defendants,” which has given Mr. Rob Bonta the opportunity to invoke something called a disgorgement remedy.

What that remedy does is to force “a party who profits from illegal or wrongful acts to give up any profits they made as a result of that illegal or wrongful conduct. The purpose of this remedy is to prevent unjust enrichment and make illegal conduct unprofitable.” Cute, isn’t it?