The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up challenges of state and local lawsuits against oil companies that seek to compel them to compensate for alleged climate change-related damages.
Energy-producing states, oil companies, and industry groups filed two challenges to waves of climate lawsuits. Critics claim these lawsuits are being used to push anti-fossil fuel policies through the states. If they are successful, oil companies will pay them billions of dollars, which will be passed on to customers.
“Consumers are not helped by these cases, which seek to wipe products from store shelves and funnel money to left-wing causes,” said O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, a consumer advocacy nonprofit.
“Here is hoping the targets of these lawsuits continue to fight these cases, as they have consistently prevailed in the final stages of review and that is the only way for consumers to not be sacrificed before the left-wing onslaught here.”
Last year, the Alliance for Consumers published a report exposing the extensive dark money campaign being used by liberal advocacy groups to finance the lawsuits. The report’s conclusions are consistent with those of other studies.
In December, Skinner told Just the News that if these lawsuits, which target energy companies using state-level nuisance laws, are successful, oil companies will have to either cease oil production or take expensive steps to reduce emissions.
Additionally, he stated that in the end, all of these cases would result in the Green New Deal, which was unsuccessful, being passed by court orders rather than through the legislative process.
Any major emitter will be susceptible to these lawsuits, so they are anticipated to target other industries. In addition to automakers and the U.S. steel industry, utilities are also being targeted.
The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, stated that not hearing the Honolulu case now could result in more lawsuits from activists seeking to become the nation’s energy regulators.
“I hope that the Court will hear the issue someday, for the sake of constitutional accountability and the public interest,” said Adam White, a senior fellow at the institute.
In May, a 19-state coalition of attorneys general, led by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, filed a constitutional challenge to similar cases filed by California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, told Just the News that Prelogar’s arguments are a departure from what you’d typically expect the federal government to argue.
When state or local litigation affects the entire nation or assumes authority over what a federal agency does — for example, the EPA regulating emissions — the solicitor general has historically protected federal authority.
Yet, in the case of climate lawsuits, the Biden-Harris administration is arguing the lawsuits aren’t ready for high court review.
“It looks like they’re motivated by allegiance to the dark money backers behind these cases,” Skinner said.
Anti-fossil fuel activists have accused the firms taking up these cases, including San Francisco-based Sher Edling, of being supported by a dark money campaign aimed at advancing laws through the U.S. judicial system that would not pass in legislatures.
To learn more about the “wealthy liberals” who are financing the lawsuits “aimed at bankrupting oil and gas companies,” the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability opened an investigation into Sher Edling last year.
The firm replied that since the companies wouldn’t be able to pay the settlements, it wouldn’t be in their best interests to bankrupt them. The firm further contended that their clients are only requesting damages for the effects of climate change that are purportedly brought on by the companies’ purported deceit, not for all of the effects.
President Donald Trump and Republican majorities in Congress are expected to take a sharply different view of environmental law and energy production than the Biden-Harris administration.