WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will open its new term Monday by hearing arguments on whether the oil and gas industry may be forced to pay damages for the scorching heat waves, wildfires and droughts that are blamed on climate change. It’s a momentous question the justices have put off deciding for nearly a decade — and may do so again. California joined more than two dozen blue states and municipalities in 2023 when it sued the five largest oil companies, alleging “decades of deception” over the danger of a warming climate.
They have “privately known the truth for decades but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment,” California Atty. Such climate-change lawsuits were patterned after the mass claims against the tobacco and opioid industries. Both were accused of concealing the dangers of their very profitable products.
But the climate suits have stalled. Judges have been divided over whether these potentially huge claims should be decided in federal or state court, and if so, under what law. Last year, Boulder County, Colo., won a 5-2 ruling in the state Supreme Court that allowed its 2018 suit to proceed as a claim of a public nuisance, an unjust enrichment or a civil conspiracy.
These are referred to as “common law” claims that are long-standing and traditional but do not rely on a measure approved by the Legislature. The Colorado judges also said the climate-change suits are not “preempted” or blocked by federal anti-pollution laws because the suit for damages did not regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The dissenters said the state court was giving Boulder a “green light to act as its own republic” to punish the Exxon Mobil Corp. for the impact of “global climate change.” Appealing to the Supreme Court, the oil companies sounded the same theme.
A ruling for the county would “authorize all 50 states and tens of thousands of municipalities” to ask their local juries to “impose ruinous liability” on the fossil fuel industry, they told the court. The Trump administration joined in support of the industry’s appeal. In February, the justices voted to hear the case and decide whether federal law blocks state law claims for the “effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions.” The court scheduled the case of Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil vs.
Boulder County as the first of the new term. Legal experts say the industry’s claim to be shielded by federal law is weak. UCLA law professor Alejandro Camacho described the “preemption arguments as the latest and perhaps most ambitious effort to weaponize federal law to prevent polluters and fraudsters from paying for the harms they cause.” Neither the Constitution nor the Clean Air Act provides such a shield, he said.
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