Nineteen Republican attorneys general filed a complaint directly with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to block California and four other states from suing major oil and gas companies in state courts for climate change-related damages.
The complaint alleges that California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Minnesota and Rhode Island are trying to regulate global emissions and the U.S. energy system through this litigation. The Commerce Clause reserves such regulatory power, they argued, for the federal government.
“These states are welcome to enforce their preferred policies within their jurisdiction, but they do not have authority to dictate our national energy policy,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement. “If the Supreme Court lets them continue, California and its allies will imperil access to affordable energy for every American.”
In September, California filed a suit against major oil companies in state court, alleging that they deceived the public over the climate risks associated with fossil fuels and caused billions of dollars in damage to communities and the environment. The civil case requests the creation of an abatement fund to finance climate mitigation efforts, an injunction to protect California’s natural resources, damages and penalties. (California Sues Oil Majors for "Climate Deception" and Environmental Damage.)
The California lawsuit alleges that oil and gas company executives “have known for decades that reliance on fossil fuels would cause these catastrophic results, but they suppressed that information from the public and policymakers by actively pushing out disinformation on the topic.” This deception, the lawsuit alleges, “caused a delayed societal response to global warming. And their misconduct has resulted in tremendous costs to people, property, and natural resources, which continue to unfold each day.”
The Supreme Court is unlikely to take the case, as it has rejected similar arguments over the past year. In April 2023, the Court declined to hear oil company requests to move climate lawsuits filed by state and local governments out of state courts and into federal court.