The nation’s top court will take up a landmark Boulder case at the request of two energy companies that local governments are attempting to hold financially liable for pollution and for knowingly driving climate change.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday announced it would hear the companies’ arguments that such lawsuits should be heard in federal court, not state court. The companies — Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil — have argued that the case should be heard in federal court and are challenging a May decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that allowed the 2018 case filed by the City of Boulder and Boulder County to continue in state court.
“The oil companies have tried every avenue to delay our climate accountability case or move it to an out-of-state court system,” Boulder County Commissioner Ashley Stolzmann said in a news release Monday morning. “As everyone continues to face rising costs that put budgets under pressure, we must hold oil companies accountable for the significant harm they’ve caused our communities. We move forward with renewed energy and purpose for the next step toward justice.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the Boulder case could have implications for dozens of similar lawsuits alleging that oil and gas companies knowingly lied to the public about how their production of fossil fuels contributes to climate change.
Governments around the country have sought damages totaling billions of dollars, arguing itap necessary to help pay for rebuilding after wildfires and severe storms worsened by climate change, along with rising sea levels.
State courts’ responses have been mixed. Some decided the cases should be heard in federal court, while Colorado and others allowed lawsuits to proceed in state court. While five of the seven Colorado Supreme Court justices said the case could stay in state court, the two dissenting justices called on the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
“As our filings make clear, climate policy shouldn’t be set through fragmented state‑court actions, and we look forward to making that case before the Court,” ExxonMobil spokesman Curtis Smith said in an emailed statement.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the Boulder case will resolve the conflicting court decisions, said Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the . The project is an effort by the National Association of Manufacturers to rebuff lawsuits in state courts that target industry.
The association is not a party to the Boulder case but to hear it.
“The Supreme Courtap decision to review Boulder’s climate lawsuit is a decisive step toward resolving conflicting rulings nationwide and reaffirming that climate policy belongs with elected policymakers — not the courts,” Goldberg said in a statement. “Courts across the country have responded to these cases in divergent ways, with many dismissing them for lack of legal and practical foundation.
“Supreme Court review will bring much-needed clarity and uniformity to this issue and help ensure that fundamental policy decisions about energy and climate are made by the appropriate branches of government.”
Arguments on the case are expected in the fall.
In the Boulder case, ExxonMobil and Suncor argued emissions were a national issue that should be heard in federal court, where similar suits have been tossed out. The federal government has the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, not state governments, the companies previously argued.
Suncor did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
President Donald Trump’s administration weighed in to support the companies and urged the justices to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court decision, saying it would mean “every locality in the country could sue essentially anyone in the world for contributing to global climate change.”
Boulder officials want Suncor and ExxonMobil to pay for the impacts of climate change, including millions for recovery from extreme weather.
Boulder’s climate initiatives director, Jonathan Koehn, from Boulder city and county officials that the case “is, fundamentally, about fairness.”
“Boulder is already experiencing the effects of a rapidly warming climate, and the financial burden of adaptation should not fall solely on local taxpayers,” Koehn said. “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will not hamstring our right under Colorado law to seek the resources needed to build a safer, more resilient future.”
The City of Boulder has prioritized climate adaptability in its long-term planning, with the effects of climate change directly influencing approaches to pertinent city issues such as transportation and wildfire hardening.
City and county officials said Boulder — and the rest of Colorado — was already shouldering costs from rising temperatures “that would otherwise fall on local taxpayers.”
“The lawsuit aims to ensure that the corporations that caused the harm pay their fair share, rather than shifting the burden to Colorado communities,” officials said in the release.
Tiff Boyd, the executive director for the Boulder County organization Classrooms for Climate Action, echoed Koehn’s belief that the average person has been bearing too much of the brunt of climate change. The 2021 Marshall fire’s impact is indicative of that — not just from the blaze but also from its aftermath of rebuilding and preparing for a future fire.
“The financial burden of all this adaptation is falling solely on local taxpayers,” said Boyd, who pointed toward an overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is human-caused, particularly from the burning of fossil fuels.
Jonathan Skinner-Thompson, an associate law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who specializes in administrative and environmental law, said the Supreme Court hasn’t shown interest in cases similar to the Boulder lawsuit in the past.
That, he said, raises curiosity and nerves about why the justices wanted to hear the case.
“You could read into that that maybe this Supreme Court doesn’t think it has the authority to hear these types of lawsuits, and so that would block people from bringing them in the future,” Skinner-Thompson said.
Skinner-Thompson added that if the Supreme Court sided with the companies, that might have the effect of blocking lawsuits seeking compensation for past climate-related damages. Cities and states could still pursue their own climate action plans, however.Monday’s decision to take up the case comes on the heels of the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent revocation of a finding that climate change posed a threat to public health, which provided the legal underpinning for regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
How the Supreme Court handles challenges to that decision may offer a window into the justices’ views on the Boulder case, he said.
“I think thatap going to be a big issue in terms of how that impacts what the Supreme Court thinks about these types of climate nuisance cases, going forward,” Skinner-Thompson said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
