Supreme Court Rejects Oil Companies’ Attempt to Move Climate Change Lawsuits to Federal Court

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a bid by major oil companies to move a series of climate change-related lawsuits against them out of state courts and into federal courts, where they hoped to have better odds. The justices denied (pdf) a total of five petitions from BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Suncor Energy, and Sunoco LP over lower court rulings that keep their cases in the state court where they were originally filed. These companies are accused of causing climate change damages to properties owned or operated by the state of Rhode Island; the counties of Boulder, Colorado and San Mateo, California; and the cities of Baltimore, Maryland, Boulder, Colorado, and Honolulu, Hawaii. A separate appeal by the oil companies challenging lower court decisions in climate accountability lawsuits brought by the states of New Jersey and Delaware is still pending before the Supreme Court. Justice Samuel Alito, who owns oil stocks, recused himself from Monday’s decisions. Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated that he would grant the petition for the case involving Colorado municipalities and Suncor and Exxon. The lawsuits, backed by the Biden administration, are largely seen as an effort to force through environmental regulations from the bench, as opposed to having elected lawmakers craft and pass laws that address the issue. In the Colorado case, for example, the plaintiffs argued that the oil companies should pay reparations for forest fires and drought, which they claimed to be a result of climate change caused by the use of fossil fuel products. The companies, according to court filings, allegedly engaged in concealing and misrepresenting “the dangers associated with the burning of fossil fuels despite having been aware of those dangers for decades.” These practices “contributed to excessive burning of fossil fuels,” which in turn led to “increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere” and forced the municipalities to spend more taxpayer’s money on maintaining roads and fighting forest fires. In March, the Biden administration weighed in the case in favor of the plaintiffs. Following an invitation from the Supreme Court seeking guidance on the matter, the U.S. Office of the Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar recommended that the high court reject the companies’ petition and allow the case to proceed in Colorado state court. Specifically, Prelogar said the Biden administration decided that “state-law claims like those pleaded here should not be recharacterized as claims arising under federal common law,” and therefore, the companies’ petition should be denied. This is a change from the policy of the Trump administration, she said. Meanwhile, the companies have urged the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that leaving this matter to the discretion of state courts would disrupt the economy on a national, if not a global, scale. “If respondents’ unprecedented effort to transform state courts into global climate-change regulators succeeds, every state court in the Nation will be empowered to use state law to unilaterally impose its own view of energy and environmental policy nationwide and, indeed, worldwide,” wrote Theodore Boutrous, a lawyer representing Chevron, in a court filing for the California case. “Respondents’ claims expose the energy sector to vast, indeterminate monetary relief that will deter investment and employment across the industry and the broader economy, and cause disruption to the global economy,” the document added. In a statement to the media outlets following Monday’s decision, Boutrous said he is confident that the suits will ultimately be dismissed. “Climate change is an issue of national and global magnitude that requires a coordinated federal policy response, not a disjointed patchwork of lawsuits in state courts across multiple states,” he said. “These wasteful lawsuits in state courts will do nothing to advance global climate solutions, nothing to reduce emissions, and nothing to address climate-related impacts.”