(The Center Square) - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a case over whether states can sue fossil fuel companies for damages related to climate change.
The nation’s highest court agreed to hear arguments in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County. Justices on the court asked both parties to submit briefs on whether it has constitutional authority to decide the case.
The case, based out of Colorado, challenges the authority of state and local governments to use nuisance laws in proceedings against fossil fuel companies.
“There is no constitutional bar to states addressing in-state harms caused by out-of-state conduct, be it the negligent design of an automobile or sale of asbestos,” the filing from attorneys for Boulder to the Supreme Court reads.
Lawyers for the energy companies said the Clean Air Act protects entities from being involved in lawsuits regarding emissions that span across state lines.
“Seeking injury in the form of physical harms allegedly caused by global emissions, as petitioners do, is just an indirect method of regulating interstate and international emissions,” lawyers for the oil companies wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court.
Typically, state nuisance laws are used in disputes with neighbors where an individual may be conducting activities that lower the value of another individual’s property.
Christopher Mills, founder of Spero Law, said this case is similar to several others across the country that are attempting to alter energy and climate change policy.
“The goal here is to affect national policy rather than actually provide any sort of traditional remedy for a local nuisance,” Mills said.
In October, the Maryland Supreme Court heard arguments in a similar case against large oil companies. Justices on the court appeared skeptical of three separate cases from Baltimore, Annapolis and Anne Arundel counties against the British oil and gas company BP.
The cases claim fossil fuel companies concealed information about their products’ contributions to climate change.
“It seems like your theory of injury and relief are all tied and necessary for relief on international emissions,” said Justice Brynja Booth.
Christopher Mills, constitutional attorney, former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, said state courts should not be deciding national energy policies.
“The Court's action shows that it rightly recognizes that this is a national issue in need of an immediate national resolution," Mills said in a statement provided to The Center Square. "Letting these copycat lawsuits fester in state courts across the country is a recipe for uncertainty, undermining American energy production and harming consumers. The right place to decide contested climate change issues is in Congress, not via state-law nuisance claims.”
John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkley, criticized the lawsuit as a mechanism to push legislative change through the court system.
“Boulder’s lawsuit seeks to rewrite national energy policy by way of its state courts,” Yoo said. “The Founders vested in Congress the authority to determine best policies for the nation, not state courts pursuing ideological causes that voters and legislators have so far declined to adopt.”
The Trump administration also encouraged the high court to review the case in a brief to the Supreme Court.
“Allowing Colorado to deem the effects of the companies’ worldwide conduct tortious ‘cannot be reconciled with the decision making scheme Congress enacted’ in the Clean Air Act, which precludes any such role for a single State,” lawyers for the Trump administration wrote in a brief to the court.
John Shu, legal scholar and commentator who served in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, agreed with Mills.
“The Court was wise to grant cert in this case. Greenhouse gas emissions are constantly moving and do not stay over a single location," She said in a statement. "This is why Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce and is the proper entity to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Furthermore, it is improper for a single state court to regulate the policies of other states.”
The Supreme Court is expected to release a decision in the case by July. The high court has yet to set a date for oral arguments in the case.
“The problem is especially severe because courts would be asked to put a price tag on the cost of one energy company's contributions to global climate change,” Mills said.
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