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California sues ExxonMobil, alleging a 'campaign of deception' about plastics recycling

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California sues ExxonMobil, alleging a 'campaign of deception' about plastics recycling


The Summary

  • California’s attorney general is suing ExxonMobil, alleging the company misled consumers into believing that recycling was a viable solution for plastic waste.
  • The suit accuses the company of waging a decadeslong “campaign of deception.”
  • The lawsuit represents a new avenue in the legal fight to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for pollution and its consequences.

California’s attorney general sued ExxonMobil on Monday, alleging that the company had waged a “campaign of deception” for decades to mislead consumers and convince them that recycling was a viable solution for plastic waste. 

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court of California in San Francisco, says ExxonMobil promoted recycling as a “cure-all for plastic waste,” even though the company knew that plastic would be difficult to eradicate and that certain methods of recycling could not process much of the waste produced.  

It further alleges that ExxonMobil violated state regulations over water pollution and misleading marketing, among others.  

“ExxonMobil promoted and vastly increased its production of single-use plastic while doling out false promises that its plastics are sustainable and recyclable and false promises that recycling would take care of ensuing plastic waste,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at a news conference.

He added: “The company has propped up sham solutions, manipulated the public and lied to consumers. … It’s time ExxonMobil is held accountable.”

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ExxonMobil said in a statement responding to the lawsuit that “advanced recycling” is effective and that the company has kept more than 60 million pounds of plastic waste out of landfills using the method. The term refers to chemical recycling: a process that breaks plastic down to its basic chemical components for potential reuse.

“For decades, California officials have known their recycling system isn’t effective. They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem,” ExxonMobil said.

The lawsuit represents a new avenue in the legal fight to hold fossil fuel companies responsible for pollution and their aggressive marketing practices. In other lawsuits, state attorneys general and environmental nonprofits have sued oil and gas giants over carbon pollution and its role in climate change and extreme weather disasters. 

The new suit, which the attorney general’s office is billing as the first of its kind, will put the lifecycle of plastics and the potential harms of microplastics at center stage. 

The state is requesting a jury trial and seeking to make ExxonMobil hand over some of its profits along with other civil penalties. Bonta said that he hopes to create an abatement fund to clean up pollution.

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Environmental groups cheered the announcement. 

“This is the big one. I hope this is going to open the floodgates,” said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, a nationwide project seeking to end plastic pollution.

Enck said that previous lawsuits have targeted individual plastic products or companies that sell them, but “this is the first to go upstream and make an effort to hold the production companies accountable.”

She added that she is skeptical of claims about the benefits of chemical recycling because the process often turns plastic into transportation fuel.

The lawsuit says ExxonMobil is the world’s largest producer of polymers used to make single-use plastics, which are derived from fossil fuels. 

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It alleges that ExxonMobil and its predecessor companies, Exxon and Mobil, for decades promoted single-use plastics through industry groups, advertising campaigns and other marketing initiatives, at one point even using Boy Scouts to sell plastic kitchen and trash bags as a fundraiser. 

The industry groups encouraged Americans to pursue a “throw-away lifestyle” and downplayed public concerns about plastics’ ecological risks, the lawsuit says. In 1973, industry leaders called those concerned about plastic waste “enemies,” according to internal communications from the Society of the Plastics Industry (now known as the Plastics Industry Association), which are cited in the lawsuit. 

When public concerns grew, ExxonMobil and its predecessors pushed mechanical recycling as a solution, despite internal industry warnings that it was not a permanent or feasible fix. One example cited in the suit: Exxon, Mobil and other petrochemical groups formed the Council for Solid Waste Solutions in 1988, which took out a 12-page advertisement in Time magazine urging recycling. 

In the U.S., the plastic recycling rate has never exceeded 9%, the lawsuit says. 

It also calls microplastic pollution a “crisis.”

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Scientists have found microplastics in fresh snowfall in Antarctica, near the summit of Everest and in the Marianas Trench — evidence of how ubiquitous this type of pollution has become. 

Microplastics can have harmful effects on both the environment and human health, some scientists say. Early studies suggest they could cause inflammatory responses and cell damage in the human body.

A study published earlier this year showed that people who have microplastics and nanoplastics in the plaque lining a major blood vessel in the neck may have a higher risk of heart attack, stroke or death.

Still, more research is needed to understand the risks microplastics may pose to human health. 

Leehi Yona, an assistant professor of environmental and climate law at Cornell University, said the lawsuit opens a second front in the fight to hold fossil fuel companies accountable. 

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“We’ve seen quite a few lawsuits that have been based on the evidence around what these companies knew about climate change and how they deceived the public,” Yona said. (California is one of many states and localities that have sued the companies over their contributions to climate change.)

But the new lawsuit expands that approach to claims about plastics, she said. 

“In my mind, these lawsuits are incredibly important not only for their legal merits, but also to draw attention to the misrepresentations of some of these companies in the same way lawsuits against the tobacco industry were about the way they misrepresented connections between smoking and lung cancer,” Yona said.

Several nonprofit organizations, including the Sierra Club, the Surfrider Foundation, Heal the Bay and Baykeeper, together filed a separate lawsuit against ExxonMobil on Monday, also in San Francisco. The attorney general’s office and the nonprofits are coordinating their legal approach and both lawsuits make similar claims.



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Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’

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Republican governor candidate Chad Bianco says he’s the ‘antithesis to California state government’


We are counting down to the California governor’s race. Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County, is one of the two biggest names running on the Republican ticket.

In a one-on-one interview with Eyewitness News political reporter Josh Haskell, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said, “I am the antithesis to California state government because I am going to take a nuclear bomb into that building and absolutely destroy everything that they do to us behind closed doors.”

Although he’s been elected by the voters twice, Bianco says he’s not a politician — which is why he believes his campaign for California governor is resonating, as reflected in the polls.

“President Trump, in one year, from 2025 when he took over, until now, did absolutely nothing to harm California. What’s harming California is 30 years of Democrat one-party rule that have created an environment here that no one can live in anymore. They’ve only been successful here in California because we vote D no matter what. You vote D or die. I mean, that’s it. Charles Manson would be elected in California if he was the only Democrat on the ballot,” Bianco said.

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Bianco isn’t the only conservative Republican running for governor, and according to polling, he’s neck-and-neck with former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

SEE ALSO: CA governor candidate Steve Hilton says ‘everybody supports’ Trump’s immigration policies

Leading in some polls in the wide-open California Governor’s race as the June primary creeps closer is Republican and former Fox News host Steve Hilton.

“Steve has no chance of winning in November. The Democrats know that I’m going to win in November, and so they have to do everything they can to keep me out of that,” Bianco said.

When asked about the affordability crisis in the state, Bianco said, “Almost the entire issue of affordability in California is because of regulation, excessive regulation imposed by government. Every single regulation can be signed away with the governor’s signature.”

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“It is a drug and alcohol addiction problem that, and a mental health problem,” he said about the homelessness crisis. “Every single bit of money that is going to these nonprofits that say ‘homeless,’ zero money. You’re getting absolutely nothing. I can’t tell you that we would end what we see in the homeless situation within a year, but I guarantee you we would never see it again after two years.”

When challenged on that prediction, pointing to how the state doesn’t have the facilities to treat the number of people living on our streets, Bianco responded, “We have been conditioned to believe that buildings take five years to build. It takes 90 days or less to build a house, but in California, it takes three to five years because the government won’t allow it. The regulations that are destroying this state are going to be removed with me as the governor.”

Bianco also said California jails shouldn’t have to play the role of treatment facilities.

Although he says he supports the Trump administration and wants the president’s endorsement, Bianco has been traveling the state — meeting not just with Republicans, but Democrats and independents as well. He says all of our state government officials have failed.

The primary election is June 2.

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No clear front-runner in race for California governor, new poll shows

A new poll shows there’s still no clear front-runner in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.



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PlayOn Sports fined $1.1 million by California watchdog over student data violations

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PlayOn Sports fined .1 million by California watchdog over student data violations


California’s privacy watchdog has ordered PlayOn Sports to pay a $1.10 million fine and change how it handles consumer data after finding the company’s practices violated state law in ways that affected students and schools in the state.

The California Privacy Protection Agency Board issued the decision following a settlement reached by CalPrivacy’s Enforcement Division.

The decision is the first by the board to address privacy violations involving students and California schools.

Schools across the country use PlayOn Sports’ GoFan platform to sell digital tickets to high school sporting events, theater performances, and homecoming and prom dances, with attendees presenting tickets at the door on their mobile phones.

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Schools also use PlayOn Sports’ platforms for other sports-related activities, including attending games, streaming them online, and looking up statistics about teams and players.

In California, about 1,400 schools contract with PlayOn Sports for these services.

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GoFan is also the official ticketing platform for the California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports.

According to the board’s decision, PlayOn Sports used tracking technologies to collect personal information and deliver targeted advertisements to ticketholders and others using its services.

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The company allegedly required Californians to click “agree” to tracking technologies before they could use their tickets or view PlayOn Sports websites, without providing a sufficient opt-out option.

“Students trying to go to prom or a high school football game shouldn’t have to leave their privacy rights at the door,” said Michael Macko, CalPrivacy’s head of enforcement. “You couldn’t attend these events without showing your ticket, and you couldn’t show your ticket without being tracked for advertising. California’s privacy law does not work that way. Businesses must ensure they offer lawful ways for Californians to opt-out, particularly with captive audiences.”

The decision also describes students as a uniquely vulnerable population and warns that targeted advertising systems can subject students to profiling that can follow them for years, expose them to manipulative or harmful content, and develop sensitive inferences about their lives.

Instead of providing its own opt-out method, PlayOn Sports directed students and other users to opt out through the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance, which the decision said violated the company’s responsibility to provide its own way for consumers to opt out. The company also allegedly failed to recognize opt-out preference signals and did not provide Californians with sufficient notice of its privacy practices.

“We are committed to making it as easy as possible for all Californians — from high school students to older adults, and everyone in between — to make the choice of whether they want to be tracked or not,” said Tom Kemp, CalPrivacy’s executive director. “Californians can opt-out with covered businesses, and they can sign up for the newly launched DROP system to request that data brokers delete their personal information.”

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Beyond the $1.10 million fine, the board’s order requires PlayOn Sports to conduct risk assessments, provide disclosures that are easy to read and understand, and implement proper opt-out methods.

The order also requires the company to comply with California’s privacy law prohibiting the selling or sharing of personal information of consumers between 13 and 16 without their affirmative opt-in consent.



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California bill to bar police from taking second job with ICE advances in state Assembly

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California bill to bar police from taking second job with ICE advances in state Assembly


Wednesday, March 4, 2026 4:43AM

CA bill to keep police from moonlighting with ICE advances

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KABC) — A bill that would prevent police officers from moonlighting with federal immigration enforcement agencies, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is advancing through the California State Assembly.

AB 1537 passed the State Assembly’s committee on public safety on Tuesday.

The bill also requires that officers report any offers for secondary employment related to immigration enforcement to their place of work.

Those failing to comply could face decertification as a peace officer in California.

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The bill was introduced by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, whose district includes Mar Vista, Ladera Heights, Mid-Wilshire and parts of South Los Angeles.

Copyright © 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.



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