A group of Republican state attorneys general this week urged the Supreme Court to get involved in litigation filed by local and state governments against fossil fuel companies alleging they are liable for damage caused by climate change.
The filing on Monday comes in an appeal from more than a half-dozen major energy companies, including Chevron, Sunoco and Exxon, which are asking the Supreme Court to reject a ruling from the Hawaii Supreme Court that favored the city and county of Honolulu and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply.
The local officials had sued the energy companies in state court, seeking redress from physical damage they contend was due to climate change. The oil companies argued the cases should be dismissed under federal law, but the state’s highest court rejected their argument, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.
The case has significant implications concerning local and state governments’ ability to sue major fossil fuel companies in state courts, alleging damages and harms under state — not federal law — from global climate emissions.
Twenty GOP attorneys general, led by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, say the lawsuit is a threat to individual state policy choices.
“The ruling below endangers the rights of states to adopt their own policies with respect to energy production, environmental protection and, potentially, any other activity that ‘exacerbate[s] the impacts of climate change,’” they argued in their filing with the high court on Monday.
Attorneys general from the following states signed on to Alabama’s brief: Arkansas, Alaska, Idaho, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Texas and Wyoming.
The Hawaii legal battle is one of several pending throughout the country, where local and state government boards are targeting fossil fuel companies over nuisance laws, claiming they are causing harm due to climate change.
Oil companies unsuccessfully tried to move the cases to federal court, but now they are arguing that federal law trumps state-level law claims over greenhouse gas emissions.
“Without this court’s intervention, years might pass before another opportunity to address this pressing question comes along. The [Supreme Court] should grant review and clarify whether state law is competent to impose the costs of global climate change on a subset of the world’s energy producers,” lawyers for the companies told the high court in their filing in February.
It would take four justices on the nine-judge high court to vote in favor of hearing the dispute for oral arguments to be scheduled.
Counsel for the City and County of Honolulu and Honolulu Board of Water Supply are expected to file their response to the companies’ petition by May 1.
Matt Gonser, executive director for Honolulu’s Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency, said, “Honolulu will respond in court on this, and that will be the only comment on the petition.”
The Honolulu Board of Water Supply did not respond to a request for comment.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.