I think the legal and to an extent the root of moral outrage at issue, Thom, is the inherent fraud of the deceptive claims facilitated by diverting profit to corporations/agencies intended to poison-the-well of public discourse, combined with active suppression of any type of release of in-house research that provided evidence that the fossil fuel industry could have been contributing to climate change.

It rubs some people (me at least) the wrong way when we try to say our policymaking is based on reasoned science, but not everyone is bringing all their chips to the table in good faith, and some are outright fabricating lies to keep the gravy train going, and keep the public guessing.

I've actually enjoyed your posts mind, and find quite a bit to agree with in them. However, I don't necessarily think you're making a successful counterargument in the sense no one is condemning the oil/petrochem industry for doing what it's doing; it seems to be aimed more at bad behavior in terms of burying inconvenient science, and funding disinformation campaigns.

That, at least, strikes me as worthy of its day in court, so at a minimum the public interest can be served by discovery. After all, they don't need to be found guilty for good to come of it.