US Supreme Court Hears Oil Giants' Bid to Block Climate Lawsuits

The US supreme court began its new nine-month term hearing arguments on Monday in a major case in which big oil companies attempted to strike a fatal blow against lawsuits that seek to hold them accountable for the climate crisis.

The Court Battle

In Suncor Energy Inc v County Commissioners of Boulder County, local officials in Boulder are suing Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil in state court to force the companies to share a portion of the costs that the climate crisis has imposed on local taxpayers. However, Exxon and Canada-based Suncor are arguing that federal law prevents state courts from hearing Boulder's climate change lawsuit. Boulder officials filed the lawsuit in Colorado court in 2018, arguing that Exxon and Suncor concealed and misrepresented to the public what they knew about the damage that burning fossil fuels would do to the climate, and that they should pay for the resulting costs of disasters. Kannon Shanmugam, a lawyer for the fossil fuel companies, told the justices that state cases such as the one filed by Boulder were the wrong way to resolve the issue and should be left to lawmakers. Kevin Russell, Boulder's attorney, argued that the industry attorney was asking them to jump through a number of hoops, and suggested the court should directly answer what in the constitution implicitly prohibits Colorado's law from applying to these claims.

Potential Outcomes

After the almost two-hour hearing, while it was not yet clear which way the justices were leaning, experts said the court may find it challenging to write a majority decision siding with industry. If the fossil fuel industry convinces the justices, the decision could apply not only to the Boulder case, but also to dozens of other climate cases brought by state and local governments around the US. Because of Justice Samuel Alito's recusal from the case, there are only five conservative justices weighing in, meaning Boulder county must only convince one conservative justice to win, assuming the three liberal justices back Boulder. Dennis Fan, founder and director of the Appellate Litigation Clinic at Columbia Law School, said the industry hopes this case is going to be the death blow to this type of lawsuit, noting that the industry is going for the home run. Climate advocates and wildfire survivors rallied on Monday morning outside the supreme court in Washington DC. Daryl McCool, an artist who lost her home when the 2021 Marshall fire destroyed her neighborhood in Boulder county, said the case is meaningful because it affects every single human and creature. The Marshall fire caused damage estimated at more than $2bn, and a recent report estimated that the climate crisis could cost Colorado up to $37bn by 2050. The Trump administration has sided with the oil companies and has carried out a series of pollution regulations, including revoking the 2009 bedrock scientific determination that gives the government the ability to regulate climate-heating pollution.

Context

State-level climate lawsuits filed by local governments represent a growing legal frontier as communities seek financial help to deal with costly climate-driven disasters like wildfires and floods. Big energy companies routinely contest these cases by arguing that broad national and global issues involving energy and air quality must be handled through federal policy rather than individual state courts.