SCOTUS Rejects Effort To Halt Climate Change Lawsuits in Dem-Led States

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a request from 19 Republican-led states, including Alabama, to prevent five Democrat-led states from pursuing lawsuits against major oil companies accused of misleading the public about fossil fuels' impact on climate change.

These Republican attorneys general attempted to take their case straight to the Supreme Court, challenging ongoing state-level lawsuits against companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP. However, the high court declined to take up the matter. States like California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have filed coordinated lawsuits against the oil giants.

While most cases reviewed by the Supreme Court come on appeal from lower courts, it does have “original jurisdiction” over rare disputes directly between states.

The Democrat-led states are pursuing monetary damages, arguing that these corporations violated state laws and suppressed information for decades about how burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change. The companies, for their part, maintain they acted lawfully.

The 2024 lawsuit, spearheaded by Alabama’s Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall, included backing from attorneys general in states such as Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

They claimed that lawsuits from Democratic states were unlawful because they sought financial compensation through state courts for alleged climate-related damages.

The Republican-led states argued these lawsuits were extreme, claiming they sought “sweeping injunctive relief or a catastrophic damages award that could restructure the national energy system.” They asserted that only the federal government has the authority to regulate emissions across state lines.

Despite the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority, oil companies have repeatedly failed to shift climate litigation from state to federal courts. For example, on January 13, the Court declined to hear an appeal from Sunoco and other firms seeking to block Honolulu’s climate lawsuit, which the Hawaii Supreme Court had allowed to proceed.

In 2024, President Joe Biden’s administration urged the Court not to consider either the appeal in the Honolulu case or the separate challenge from the 19 Republican-led states.

Looking ahead, the administration of Republican President Donald Trump is expected to oppose these types of climate cases. Before the 2024 election, the Trump campaign vowed to “stop the wave of frivolous litigation from environmental extremists.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, representing the Democratic-led states, called the Republican challenge “meritless” and said it stemmed from a misinterpretation of their climate lawsuits.

According to the Democrats, these legal actions aren’t aimed at punishing companies for fossil fuel production itself, but instead seek to “address local harms resulting from unlawful deceptive conduct by private defendants.”

In another recent development, the Supreme Court made headlines with a 7-2 decision involving the Veterans Court. The ruling stated that the court isn’t required to re-evaluate all evidence in disability benefit cases unless a “clear mistake” is present.

Veterans Norman Thornton and Joshua Bufkin had contested this rule. Thornton, a Gulf War veteran, believed his PTSD rating was too low, while conflicting medical opinions about Bufkin’s PTSD eligibility led to his denial.

Their legal team argued the ruling could impact many other veterans.

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, saying the decision could result in the Veterans Court favoring the VA despite Congress’s efforts to protect veterans.

Veterans’ organizations supported the challenge, saying Congress intended the Veterans Court—established in 1988 and reaffirmed in 2002—to give claimants the benefit of the doubt.

However, the federal government contended that the court’s role is not to reweigh evidence, but to determine whether there was a “clear mistake” in the VA’s decision.