SCOTUS New Term Begins With Colorado County’s Lawsuit Against Big Oil, Which Could Impact Global Regulations

The U.S. Supreme Court began its new term on Monday, and the first case it is hearing is one surrounding a lawsuit filed in state court by the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, that seeks to hold energy companies accountable for the effects of global climate change, which, of course, is one of the many things President Donald Trump and his administration have claimed is a “hoax.”

According to NPR, in 2018, Boulder County filed a lawsuit against energy giants Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil, alleging that the companies and a trade group knew decades ago that fossil fuels would harm the environment and raise the risk of floods, extreme heat, and wildfires. Then, in December 2021, the Marshall Fire swept across the county, laying waste to the homes in its community. The plaintiffs believe this was a foreseeable and avoidable catastrophe.

“This case represents whether or not we believe as a society that corporations should be held to the same standards that all of us are, right?” said Corey Riday-White, legal director at the Center for Climate Integrity, which supports communities trying to hold oil companies responsible for the damage they do to the environment. “If you know you are going to cause harm, and you don’t tell someone, then you should help clean up that harm.”

Representatives for the defendants don’t even seem to be denying the harm; they’re essentially arguing that cities, counties, and towns shouldn’t be able to set legal precedent that would impact the world, whether their communities have been harmed or not.

From NPR:

Boulder’s lawsuit has not gone to trial; it’s still in the early stages in the Colorado court system. But the energy companies are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the case now. The companies say only the federal government has the power and expertise to grapple with something as big as climate change. To let Boulder’s case proceed, they say, would have huge implications.

Todd Zywicki is a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

“This is about whether a bunch of rich hippies in Boulder County are allowed to dictate environment and energy policy to the entire rest of the world,” Zywicki said in a recent webinar about the case.

The Trump administration is siding with the energy companies, arguing global warming is a global issue.

“Essentially Boulder claims that Colorado can reach around the United States, the entirety of the United States, and to my mind, regulate production everywhere by attaching liability to it,” said Sai Prakash, a law professor at the University of Virginia who filed a friend of the court brief backing Suncor and Exxon.

“If Boulder can attach liability to these two companies … I think it can attach liability to thousands of others as well,” Prakash said.

Again, of course, the Trump administration is on the side of “big oil” on this one.

As previously reported, last month, when multiple employees at AI research and products corporation Anthropic, top leaders at OpenAI, and even Elon Musk started sounding the alarm on artificial intelligence technology advancing too fast to have so few guardrails, Trump responded to AI experts’ concerns regarding AI by calling it all a “HOAX” and a “SICK conspiracy,” like “the Global Warming scam.”

Then he announced to the UN that he was renaming AI as “Super Intelligence,” and later, he had AI leaders sign an accord that basically just made them promise to “self-police.”

This is also the windmill-hating president who has spent both his terms in office fighting the effort to replace fossil fuels with any source of green energy. And it’s the administration that ended a wastewater settlement for a mostly Black Alabama town, falsely calling it “environmental justice as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens,” simply because environmental racism was addressed in the reaching of the settlement.

So, yeah — the administration siding with oil companies over the communities they’re accused of harming is about as surprising as a clear sky on a sunny day.

Meanwhile, Boulder says it’s actually not suing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and only wants to recover past and future costs of repairs, emergency services, and property damage.

Still, according to the Washington Post, Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County is far bigger than Boulder, Colorado, and if the plaintiffs succeed in recouping their losses through the court system, local rules could become case law validating lawsuits against companies for emissions that occur elsewhere.

In fact, as NPR noted, “Dozens of similar cases where states and municipalities are suing energy giants have been moving through the courts at early stages,” and “Any Supreme Court ruling could have repercussions for many of them.”

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito has also recused himself from the case, and while the court clerk provided no reason for his recusal, NPR reported that environmental organizations and watchdog groups had called for it because of the justice’s investments in Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillips.

“The public should not have to wonder whether a justice’s personal investments could benefit from a ruling that shields the fossil-fuel industry from liability,” said Justin Kloczko of the group Consumer Watchdog. Kloczko also remarked that Alito’s decision to recuse himself is “the right decision, and one he should have made from the start.”

So, now, it’s up to eight justices to decide the fate of Boulder’s lawsuit, and in the case of a tie vote, the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court, which has already decided the suit should proceed, will be the decision that stands by default.

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