Big Filthy Fossil Fuels often gets paid no matter what

This is part of an in-depth sries.

Before the sun set on his inauguration day, Joe Biden reversed a raft of his predecessor’s deregulation policies with the stroke of a pen. Among them was an order revoking the permit for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Canceling the project was a campaign pledge to address the climate crisis. But looming over that decision was the risk that an obscure but powerful international legal system could force the United States to pay billions of dollars to Keystone XL’s Canadian developer, TC Energy.

That system—embedded in thousands of trade and investment treaties—allows corporations to drag governments before panels of arbitrators, usually behind closed doors. Governments have been ordered to pay billions of dollars in damages to oil and mining companies for violating those treaties. While the system was intended to protect foreign investors from unfair treatment or asset seizure, many environmental advocates, lawyers and politicians say it is now being used to win awards from governments that enact new environmental regulations or raise taxes on polluting industries.

Increasingly, these critics warn the system threatens climate action by punishing governments that phase out fossil fuels. - Inside Climate News

Forced arbitration is evil

There are proposed legislative remedies noted in the article, but they probably won't happen soon.

If anything, 26% is a very conservative estimate of wage theft among low-wage workers subject to forced arbitration. We believe the percentage is likely even higher, due to the lack of compliance incentive for these employers as a result of their decision to impose forced arbitration on their workers.

The claim-suppressive effect of forced arbitration was detailed in Cynthia Estlund’s pathbreaking 2018 article, The Black Hole of Mandatory Arbitration. Estlund found that, faced with the prospect of having to submit their claims to forced arbitration, the vast majority of workers—98%—never file a claim at all. With no effective access to justice, workers simply abandon their claims. - NELP