San Francisco Frontiers - US Supreme Court to hear bid to block climate change suits

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed across the United States seeking to hold fossil fuel producers liable for damages caused by climate change.

Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy (USA) are appealing a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that a climate change lawsuit filed by the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, should be allowed to proceed in state court.

The energy giants argue that such claims should be heard in federal -- not state -- court and that federal environmental laws should apply.

"Boulder, Colorado, cannot make energy policy for the entire country," they said in their petition asking the Supreme Court for review.

"State law cannot impose the costs of global climate change on a subset of the world's energy producers chosen by a single municipality."

Exxon Mobil and Suncor said energy companies are being sued for "billions of dollars in damages for injuries allegedly caused by the contribution of greenhouse-gas emissions to global climate change."

"But as the Court has recognized for over a century," they said, "the structure of our constitutional system does not permit a State to provide relief under state law for injuries allegedly caused by pollution emanating from outside the State."

The Justice Department under President Donald Trump, reversing the stance of the Biden administration, asked the conservative majority Supreme Court to weigh in through a friend-of-the-court brief in the Colorado case.

Reacting to the decision to hear the case, Alyssa Johl, vice president at the Center for Climate Integrity, urged the Supreme Court to uphold the Colorado Supreme Court ruling.

"No part of the Constitution, or any state or federal law, gives corporations the right to lie to the public about the dangers associated with their products simply because those products are fossil fuels," Johl said in a statement.

"The Court should uphold what the Colorado Supreme Court and others have made clear: communities like Boulder have the right to seek accountability in their state courts when corporations have knowingly caused local harms."

Many of the lawsuits filed against oil and gas giants by state and local authorities are modeled on successful legal actions taken against the tobacco industry in the 1990s.

None have yet gone to trial.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in the case in the fall term, which begins in October.

K.Gray--SFF