The climate change court fight between California cities and big energy companies such as Exxon Mobil is widening as Republican attorneys general from 15 states filed a court brief Friday opposing the cities’ climate lawsuits.
The attorneys general argue that the cities and municipalities suing the companies in federal court are overreaching in using local “nuisance” ordinances as a way to find a court remedy to the complex issue of global warming.
The 15 states filing the amicus brief opposing the lawsuit include Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming, Colorado, West Virginia, Indiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin.
States such as Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming, and West Virginia are big oil, natural gas, and coal producers. Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general, was often in Washington with then-Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt when many of those states were fighting the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan climate rules.
The brief, filed in the District Court for Northern California, also argues that the nature of the lawsuit clearly makes it a national policy issue that one court is not in the position to decide. If the suit proceeds, it will lead to an avalanche of similar lawsuits all over the country, with conflicting judgments and results in their states.
“… The questions of global climate change and its effects — and the proper balance of regulatory and commercial activity — are political questions not suited for resolution by any court,” the brief argues.
“Indeed, such judicial resolution would trample Congress’s carefully calibrated process of cooperative federalism where states work in tandem with [the Environmental Protection Agency] to administer the federal Clean Air Act,” the brief continued.
The cities of San Francisco and Oakland want five energy companies, including Exxon, to pay for infrastructure improvements to guard against the effects of climate change, primarily sea-level rise.
But the conservative attorneys general say that would impose enormous costs that fossil companies could not pay.
“Plaintiffs are asking the court to order defendants to pay to build sea walls, raise the elevation of low-lying property and buildings, and construct other infrastructure projects necessary to combat the effects of global climate change for the major cities of Oakland and San Francisco,” the brief states.
“Such a remedy could cost several billion dollars and seriously impact defendants’ ability to provide energy to the rest of the country,” the brief added. “In effect, plaintiffs would be imposing limitations on commerce that takes place wholly outside California’s borders.”
That gets at their constitutional claims that the “limitations” on energy production violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, “and the court should not permit them.”
The commerce clause says only Congress, not states, has authority over interstate trade.
