Millard: State courts should nix climate lawsuits: experts

As state court judges issue conflicting rulings on state and city-led context change lawsuits against major vigor companies legal experts hope the Supreme Court eventually weighs in In Rhode Island became the first state to invoke its laws in a circumstances lawsuit targeting Chevron Shell BP ConocoPhillips ExxonMobil Citgo and Marathon Oil Seven additional states and more than a dozen cities and counties followed suit months later The suits claim Big Oil misled residents about the effect of using fossil fuels which they say caused higher sea levels drought and millions of dollars in lost property tax revenue The states and municipalities hope state courts will give them favorable judgments It mirrors the legal strategy states used against Big Tobacco in the s Those suits resulted in a multi-billion-dollar settlement The conditions are different this time around Unlike the Big Tobacco suits which involved all states plus the District of Columbia Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands the context suits involve Democratic-run states and municipalities with an outlier being the commonwealth of Puerto Rico overseen by Republican Gov Jenniffer Gonz lez-Col n Vitality companies and supporters argue these cases arise under federal law They argue the Clean Air Act passed in supersedes state trash laws It s an argument previously backed by the Supreme Court In the American Electric Power Co v Connecticut incident the justices unanimously ruled the Clean Air Act took precedence over state laws Eight states had sued power companies claiming their greenhouse gas emissions were a citizens nuisance However the Supreme Court seems hesitant to get involved In January the court rejected a request by strength companies to review a Hawaii Supreme Court decision on Honolulu s suit The justices rejected a request by Republican-led states to sue the Democratic states for interfering with state sovereignty two months later Philip S Goldberg special counsel for the Manufacturers Accountability Project is confident the high court will eventually intervene once the legal process plays out It could take a while because lower courts tend to weigh in first before the Supreme Court takes up a scenario Goldberg expressed frustration with the timeline With all these cases all over the country it would have been very helpful for the Supreme Court to at least lay down the standards and the rules of the road for how these cases should be looked at he mentioned during a webinar hosted by the Washington Legal Foundation Several of the Big Oil context suits haven t turned out the way environmentalists hoped While judges in Minnesota Hawaii and the District of Columbia have refused to toss cases judges in other states either set limits or rejected the plaintiffs arguments thoroughly In Delaware a Superior Court judge narrowed the state s suit so it focused solely on emissions originating in Delaware Bigger blows to environmentalists happened in Maryland A Baltimore judge explained last summer the city s suit went too far Then in January a separate judge rejected suits filed by the city of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County The Maryland Supreme Court may eventually decide on the constitutionality of the suits In addition state court judges in New York and New Jersey respectively dismissed New York City and New Jersey s state law lawsuits this year Theodore J Boutrous Jr Chevron s lead attorney explained the judicial rulings are proof that the cases have no merit As the New Jersey Superior Court held in dismissing New Jersey s similar state lawsuit the leading and most of persuasive event supporting dismissal is the nd Circuit decision in City of New York There the federal appeals court rejected the availability of state tort law in the weather change context Boutrous disclosed As the legal process drags on state lawmakers have made legislative moves New York and Vermont enacted conditions superfund laws last year to start collecting millions of dollars in fines from major resource companies California and Massachusetts have similar bills under consideration The Trump administration made moves to counteract the state laws President Trump signed an executive order on April calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate state and local weather laws These State laws and policies weaken our national safety and devastate Americans by driving up force costs for families coast to coast wrote Trump Environmentalists want the state actions to continue without involvement from federal courts Big Oil companies have fueled the situation emergency and deceived the constituents about it for decades and now thanks to the efforts of D C and other communities the fossil fuel industry s day of legal reckoning is closer than ever announced Richard Wiles the president of the Center for Situation Integrity Republican attorneys general argue the rulings are more reason for the Supreme Court to get involved Until this is resolved at SCOTUS I think this is going to be an ongoing issue South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson stated at the Washington Legal Foundation webinar Taylor Millard writes about politics and masses procedures for InsideSources com