Exxon Mobil Corporation is suing the state of California over a pair of 2023 climate disclosure laws that the company says infringe upon its free speech rights, namely by forcing it to embrace the message that large companies are uniquely to blame for climate change.

The oil and gas corporation based in Texas filed its complaint Friday in the U.S. Eastern District Court for California. It asks the court to prevent the laws from going into effect next year.

In its complaint, ExxonMobil says it has for years publicly disclosed its greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related business risks, but it fundamentally disagrees with the state’s new reporting requirements.

The company would have to use “frameworks that place disproportionate blame on large companies like ExxonMobil” for the purpose of shaming such companies, the complaint states.

Under Senate Bill 253, large businesses will have to disclose a wide range of planet-warming emissions, including both direct and indirect emissions such as the costs of employee business travel and product transport.

ExxonMobil takes issue with the methodology required by the state, which would focus on a company’s emissions worldwide and therefore fault businesses just for being large as opposed to being efficient, the complaint states.

The second law, Senate Bill 261, requires companies making more than $500 million annually to disclose the financial risks that climate change poses to their businesses and how they plan to address them.

The company said in its complaint that the law would require it to speculate “about unknowable future developments” and post such speculations on its website.

A spokesperson for the office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in an email that it was “truly shocking that one of the biggest polluters on the planet would be opposed to transparency.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has doubled down on comments he made about migration, saying many Germans and Europeans are “afraid to move around in public spaces.”

Merz has rejected criticism from some German political circles over his government’s tough stance on illegal immigration.

“But we still have this problem in the cityscape, of course, and that’s why the federal interior minister is facilitating and carrying out large-scale deportations,” he said during a visit to Potsdam last week.

GERMANY BRACES UNDER COLLAPSING GOVERNMENT AND LOOMING TRUMP TRADE WAR

The statement prompted backlash, some accusing the German leader of being racist. He rejected the criticism while on the sidelines of a summit on the Western Balkans in London, saying migrants were “an indispensable part of our labor market,” German-based DW News reported.

He also claimed that many people in Germany and across Europe are nonetheless “afraid to move around in public spaces” because of migrants “who do not have permanent residence status, do not work and do not abide by our rules,” the outlet reported.

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Numerous demonstrators gather for a demonstration in Berlin Oct. 19, 2025, with the slogan “Brandmauer hoch!” (“We are the cityscape”), referring to a statement made by Chancellor Merz in reference to migration policy.   (Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images)

“I don’t know whether you have children. If you do, and there are daughters among them, ask your daughters what I might have meant. I suspect you’ll get a pretty clear and unambiguous answer. There’s nothing I need to retract,” he said when asked if he would withdraw his earlier remarks.

Some have signed a petition disputing Merz’s comments. The signees include actor Marie Nasemann and environmental activist Luisa Neubauer.

“There are approximately 40 million daughters in this country. We have a genuine interest in ensuring that our safety is taken seriously,” Neubauer wrote on Instagram. “What we are not interested in is being misused as a pretext or justification for statements that were ultimately discriminatory, racist and deeply hurtful.”

WASHINGTON/OAKLAND, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Donald Trump will not deploy federal agents to San Francisco, the U.S. president and the California city’s mayor said in separate social media posts on Thursday, a surprising stand-down as Trump pressures Democratic-led cities around the country to step up enforcement against crime and illegal immigration.

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, a Democrat, said in a post on X that Trump called him Wednesday night to tell him he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment. Lurie said the city would continue to partner with federal agencies to combat drug crime, but that “militarized immigration enforcement” would not help.

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“We appreciate that the president understands that we are the global hub for technology, and when San Francisco is strong, our country is strong,” Lurie said.

Trump confirmed the agreement in a post on Truth Social, saying the federal government had been preparing a surge in San Francisco but would cancel it.

“I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around,” Trump said. “The people of San Francisco have come together on fighting Crime, especially since we began to take charge of that very nasty subject.”

The Republican president said two major tech executives – Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff – had called him “saying that the future of San Francisco is great.”

Trump had indicated San Francisco would be a next stop for National Guard troops he was sending to various U.S. Democratic-led cities, moves that have been challenged in courts.

BORDER PATROL AGENTS FACE PROTESTS

Despite the apparent stand-down, a handful of U.S. Border Patrol vehicles arrived at a U.S. Coast Guard base in the Bay Area on Thursday morning and were met with several hundred protesters.

Demonstrators carried signs reading “Stop the Kidnappings” and “Protect Our Neighbors,” with one protester smacking the window of a truck as it passed by. Federal agents eventually used less-lethal rounds to disperse the crowd, with protesters saying one person was injured by a projectile and that another had their foot run over.

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, the former member of Congress and civil rights activist, said in televised remarks that a federal deployment would divide and intimidate.

“We will not allow outsiders to create chaos or exploit our city,” said Lee, a Democrat.

Trump aims to deport record numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, portraying them as criminals and a drain on U.S. communities. Democrats in major U.S. cities have criticized the crackdown, saying it has terrorized law-abiding residents, separated families and hurt businesses.

Trump has long highlighted what he views as rampant crime in San Francisco and had signaled in recent weeks that he would send federal agents there.

“We’re going to San Francisco and we’ll make it great,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday.

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