After half a year of suspense, the Biden administration is urging the Supreme Court to deny Big Oil’s petition to hear a high-profile case, arguing that climate lawsuits should stay in state courts.
The Department of Justice’s solicitor general released a legal brief last week that pertains to a lawsuit filed by the city and county of Boulder, along with San Miguel County, seeking millions of dollars from oil companies to update their infrastructure to deal with the impacts of climate change. The governments argue that Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil violated the state’s consumer protection laws by producing and selling fossil fuels in Colorado despite knowing that using their products would lead to more dangerous heat waves, wildfires, and floods.
Last February, a federal appeals court sent the case back to state court. After that, Suncor and Exxon petitioned the Supreme Court to grant “cert,” or hear the case, hoping to reverse that ruling. Oil companies have argued that the lawsuit isn’t really about deceptive marketing, but the large-scale problem of ... Read more
