(The Center Square) – Energy producers facing a climate lawsuit from the city of Honolulu are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the case, which could have sweeping implications.
The energy companies have petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case that could block state and local governments, including Honolulu, from pursuing state lawsuits that accuse fuel producers of duping the public about climate change.
President Joe Biden’s administration wants the high court to reject the efforts by energy producers and Republican state attorneys general. At issue is whether federal law precludes state law claims seeking redress for injuries allegedly caused by the effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions on the worldwide climate.
“The question is of substantial importance to one of the country’s most critical industries, and it raises profound questions of constitutional structure,” the petitioners, Sunoco et al., asked the U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of Sunoco LP v. City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii.
Sunoco and other fuel producers argue the time is right to settle the dispute.
“In light of the enormous legal and practical importance of this case, now is the time to resolve the question presented,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote. “The Court’s intervention is urgently needed to dispel the cloud of uncertainty hanging over one of this Nation’s most critical industries, to protect important federal interests in national and economic security, and to prevent wasting untold resources in litigating and adjudicating cases that should be dismissed at the outset.”
While the Biden administration opposes the oil and gas companies’ efforts, President-elect Donald Trump, on the campaign trail, pledged to stop the “frivolous litigation.”
The city and county of Honolulu filed a lawsuit in 2020 accusing oil and gas companies, including Sunoco, Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell, of misleading the public for decades about the dangers of climate change induced by burning fossil fuels.
On Dec. 10, President Biden’s Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the Honolulu case, as requested by the Supreme Court in June 2024. Prelogar’s brief asked the court to deny the defendants’ petition and let the case proceed under Hawaii state law.
In her brief, Prelogar departed from the views of the past Solicitors General under the Trump and Obama administrations. In his brief to the Supreme Court in 2010 in American Electric Power vs. Connecticut, former Obama Acting Solicitor General Neat Katyal wrote, “The problem is not simply that many plaintiffs could bring such claims and that many defendants could be sued. It is also that essentially any potential plaintiff could claim to have been injured by any (or all) of the potential defendants. The medium that transmits injury to potential plaintiffs is literally the Earth’s entire atmosphere…”
The Supreme Court subsequently dismissed the case in American Electric Power vs. Connecticut in a unanimous decision written by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, holding that climate change-related claims are subject to the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress, not the courts.
In 2020, former Trump Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall wrote in a brief regarding Baltimore’s climate lawsuit, “Under this Court’s precedents, state law can be wholly displaced in ‘matters essentially of federal character,’ even when ‘Congress has not acted affirmatively about the specific question.'”
Prelogar’s Dec. 10 brief says the defendants may have a valid argument in favor of federal law since Honolulu is suing over conduct taking place outside of Hawaii’s borders. Prelogar wrote, “To be sure, petitioners may ultimately prevail on their contention that respondents’ claims are barred by the Constitution – specifically, the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Clauses, the Due Process Clause, and federal constitutional structure – to the extent the claims rely on conduct occurring outside Hawaii.”
All eyes are now on the Supreme Court for its decision on this matter. Industry observers will be watching closely. The justices are scheduled to conference on the case on Friday, Jan. 10, with a decision to come after on whether or not to review if federal law pre-empts Honolulu’s state law claims over climate change.
Ahead of the Supreme Court decision, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP, counsel for Chevron Corporation, said, “The Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision flatly contradicts U.S. Supreme Court precedent and other federal circuit court decisions. In dismissing a nearly identical lawsuit, the Second Circuit held, ‘such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law.’ The Supreme Court should grant review now to prevent pointless harm to our nation’s energy security.”
