The US Supreme Court said on Monday that it You will not hear a case It seeks to stop climate claims in five democratic states, which seek to obtain financial damage from oil and gas companies due to blocking the relationship between their products and global warming.
rejection complaintHe was submitted directly to the Supreme Court by a coalition of 19 attorneys from the red countries. He argued that climate lawsuits in California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rod Island represent an illegal attempt to regulate the national energy system, which is something that the federal government can only do.
Forcing companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron to pay the costs of damage caused by forest fires, floods, hurricanes and other disasters that the climate fed will affect people outside the borders of the blue states. They said that it will raise energy prices and “threaten not only our federal system and equal sovereignty between the states, but our basic way of life.”
Legal experts said they were not invited because the Supreme Court did not take the case. “It was a political trick,” said Pat Peronto, a professor of honorary law in the Fairmont Law and the College of Graduate Studies. “There was no legal basis for the court to grant this petition.”
Although the Supreme Court is the only court that has a jurisdiction to hear lawsuits between the states, it usually hears only two or two cases of such a year – and is usually taken up to contamination cases between states or common resources, such as water from rivers. This issue “was brought to the legal theory that anything might negatively affect the fossil fuel industry harms the red states,” and Robert Perseval, director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Curry.
When the complaint was announced last fall, the law professors described it as “Mary’s tricks a corridor“An attempt to benefit from the great generations to preserve the Supreme Court 6-3 and its willingness to take over the cases that Percival described to E & E News as” Wackier and Wackier “.
Compare it Perseval with an unsuccessful Try led by Texas After the 2020 presidential elections to prevent the blue states from ratifying Joe Biden’s victory. In this case and in the most modern climate, the countries led by Republicans were lacking in standing, which means that they were unable to prove that they were harmed by the relevant policies. “It was clear that they had no leg to stand,” Perseval told Grist.
Seven of the nine court judges agreed not to hear the case. Clarence Thomas, one of the court Most conservative judges And the subject Multiple corruption scandalsBook a Opposition On the pretext that the red state lawsuit “claims serious constitutional violations.” Judge Samuel Alto, who shows recent financial disclosures that he or his wife Private stocks In oil and gas companies Conocophillips and Phillips 66 Both were called in the countries led by the Democrats Climate claims Join Thomas in the opposition.
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The Supreme Court decision means that the blue state lawsuits can move forward in their courts – a narrow victory for climate defender, while it has become a judicial battle that is an exciting dispute. The fossil fuel companies have repeatedly argued that federal law should exclude climate claims at the state level, and thus have been transferred to federal courts, which are less likely to rule against the industry. Corporate efforts have prepared lawsuits in Marylandand Dilayerand New JerseyAnd New York; They did not succeed in Californiaand Contecticutand MinnesotaAnd Rod Island.
“This is a dynamic field of law at the present time with a lot of prediction’s ability,” said Parenteau.
At the present time, the Supreme Court appears to be unwilling to make a public decision on this case. In addition to the complaint submitted by lawyers in 19, it also refused to review the suspended litigation in a number of states, including the states Colorado, Maryland, California, Hawaii, Roses Island. This week’s news indicates that the Supreme Court “does not want to take any of these lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, at least until one trial is carried out and passes through the state’s resumption,” said Michael Gerard, director of the faculty at the Sabine Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Faculty of Law in Colombia.
Parenteau said that the case closest to the trial is a case in Massachusetts, claiming that fossil fuel companies Consumer protection laws violated By lying to the public about the contribution of their products to climate change. Next is a lawsuit filed by Honolulu against fossil fuel companies, which in January in January Survive He asked 15 energy companies to remove it from the jurisdiction of the Huawei Supreme Court.
Most of these lawsuits are martyred certificateIncluding the internal industry documents, which show that fossil fuel companies I knew decades ago That its products It would cause climate change And patients harm society. Calls hide, hide this information from the public, violate consumer protection at the state level and the laws of public inconvenience. The fossil fuel companies have maintained their innocence.
Peronto said that the ruling against the fossil fuel industry will surely be the Supreme Court, at this stage, “We are in an unknown area.” He said that the three liberal judges are likely to stand by the states, while Alito, Thomas and Brett Kavanau are likely to stand with oil companies. Other others – John Roberts, Amy Cony Barrett, and Nile Jorsh – can go in either direction.
The Blue State Prosecutor who leads the lawsuits against fossil fuel companies said they are happy to dismiss the Supreme Court of Square. William Tong, the Connecticut Public Prosecutor, said the complaint was.A total loser from the beginning“The Prosecutor at Minnesota Keith Ellson said in A. statement The complaint was never more than just an attempt to operate overlap, help the defendants in our issues avoid accountability, and play politics with the constitution. “
