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SCOTUSblog: Red states urge Supreme Court to block suits against big oil
RELIST WATCH
Red states urge Supreme Court to block suits against big oil
By John Elwood
on Jan 23, 2025 at 4:47 pm
The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.
{snip}
That brings us to this week’s one new relist: Alabama v. California. It is one of the relatively few examples of the Supreme Court’s authority to hear cases that have not first gone through the lower courts, known as original jurisdiction, including disputes between two or more states. Those disputes usually involve water or territorial rights.
Alabama v. California represents an effort by 19 red states to block lawsuits brought by five blue or purple states against oil and gas companies, alleging that the companies knew that their products contributed to climate change but misled the public about the cause of climate change and the risks of fossil fuels. When California brought the first of these suits in 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that it should be big polluters, rather than Californians, who pay for damages from climate change-related events such as “[w]ildfires wiping out entire communities.”
Alabama and the other states have asked the Supreme Court to allow them to file a bill of complaint seeking to halt those suits, arguing that they violate the horizontal separation of powers by seeking to regulate activity beyond the defendant states’ borders. The states also allege that suits involving the interstate effects of pollution are exclusively governed by federal common law and belong in federal court to avoid the risk of inconsistent judgments.
Last October, the court asked the solicitor general to file a friend-of-the-court brief explaining the views of the United States both in this case as well as a pair of related cases concerning climate change suits brought by Honolulu. Although the government has previously taken the position that federal law precludes the application of state law to transboundary pollution claims, the Biden administration argued that the court should deny review in all three cases, saying the court lacked the power to review them. On Jan. 13, the court denied review in the two Honolulu cases without even relisting them. ... The court has now relisted Alabama’s case. While the relist undoubtedly means the justices are looking closely at the case, it seems likely that if the court were going to let the suit proceed, the justices would have held the two Honolulu cases, because the outcome in them might have been affected by any judgment in favor of Alabama and the other red states. Thus, it may be that one or more of the justices is writing a separate opinion.
{snip}
Recommended Citation: John Elwood, Red states urge Supreme Court to block suits against big oil, SCOTUSblog (Jan. 23, 2025, 4:47 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/01/red-states-urge-supreme-court-to-block-suits-against-big-oil/
Red states urge Supreme Court to block suits against big oil
By John Elwood
on Jan 23, 2025 at 4:47 pm
The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference. A short explanation of relists is available here.
{snip}
That brings us to this week’s one new relist: Alabama v. California. It is one of the relatively few examples of the Supreme Court’s authority to hear cases that have not first gone through the lower courts, known as original jurisdiction, including disputes between two or more states. Those disputes usually involve water or territorial rights.
Alabama v. California represents an effort by 19 red states to block lawsuits brought by five blue or purple states against oil and gas companies, alleging that the companies knew that their products contributed to climate change but misled the public about the cause of climate change and the risks of fossil fuels. When California brought the first of these suits in 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that it should be big polluters, rather than Californians, who pay for damages from climate change-related events such as “[w]ildfires wiping out entire communities.”
Alabama and the other states have asked the Supreme Court to allow them to file a bill of complaint seeking to halt those suits, arguing that they violate the horizontal separation of powers by seeking to regulate activity beyond the defendant states’ borders. The states also allege that suits involving the interstate effects of pollution are exclusively governed by federal common law and belong in federal court to avoid the risk of inconsistent judgments.
Last October, the court asked the solicitor general to file a friend-of-the-court brief explaining the views of the United States both in this case as well as a pair of related cases concerning climate change suits brought by Honolulu. Although the government has previously taken the position that federal law precludes the application of state law to transboundary pollution claims, the Biden administration argued that the court should deny review in all three cases, saying the court lacked the power to review them. On Jan. 13, the court denied review in the two Honolulu cases without even relisting them. ... The court has now relisted Alabama’s case. While the relist undoubtedly means the justices are looking closely at the case, it seems likely that if the court were going to let the suit proceed, the justices would have held the two Honolulu cases, because the outcome in them might have been affected by any judgment in favor of Alabama and the other red states. Thus, it may be that one or more of the justices is writing a separate opinion.
{snip}
Recommended Citation: John Elwood, Red states urge Supreme Court to block suits against big oil, SCOTUSblog (Jan. 23, 2025, 4:47 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/01/red-states-urge-supreme-court-to-block-suits-against-big-oil/
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