BP, ExxonMobil, and other oil companies will get another opportunity to push city and state climate liability lawsuits to federal court after a Supreme Court ruling in their favor Monday.
The Supreme Court’s opinion will have implications for the more than two dozen lawsuits oil companies now face from cities and states seeking to force them to pay for climate damages.
OIL MAJORS WANT SUPREME COURT TO HAMSTRING GROWING STATE AND LOCAL CLIMATE LAWSUITS
The oil industry has been attempting to move those lawsuits to federal court, which they see as a more favorable venue. Several federal appeals courts have rejected the industry’s claims.
The Supreme Court was considering the oil industry’s appeal in Baltimore’s climate case, and the 7-1 decision, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, gives the oil companies another chance to argue their case for why the litigation should be under federal jurisdiction.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the sole dissenting opinion, and Justice Samuel Alito didn’t participate in the case.
The Supreme Court did not address the merits of Baltimore’s claims against the oil companies, nor the substantive arguments over whether the case should be held in federal or state court. The oil companies and industry allies had hoped the Supreme Court would broaden its response and determine Baltimore’s case and others like it should be heard in federal court.
Instead, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit should have weighed all arguments from the oil companies as to why the case should be heard in federal court, rather than focusing on one narrow procedural issue. The Supreme Court is calling on the 4th Circuit to take another look at all of the arguments about where the case should be heard.
In recent weeks, Democratic politicians have been calling on the Biden administration to support the city and state plaintiffs in these climate cases, which ask the courts to hold oil companies liable for the costs of adapting to climate change effects such as sea level rise, flooding, and extreme weather.
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Nine Democratic senators wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland last week calling on him to reverse positions taken by the Trump administration backing the oil companies in the lawsuits. The Trump administration argued before the Supreme Court in the Baltimore appeal in favor of the oil industry on its last full day in office.
“The fossil fuel industry will continue to undermine justice by using these briefs until the Department reverses the positions it has taken in those lawsuits,” wrote the senators, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
