Suncor Emissions Liability Case Finally Heads to Supreme Court

For more than a decade, a collection of blue states, cities, and other climate plaintiffs have been asking courts across the country to decide an important question of national (and international) significance — all while doing everything they can to keep the issue away from the U.S. Supreme Court.

These plaintiffs seek to use state laws and state courts to hold energy companies liable for the worldwide effects of global emissions. That effort runs up against the basic constitutional rule that “no state can legislate for another,” and also against federal policy — most notably, the Clean Air Act — that preempts state regulation of global emissions. To evade Supreme Court review, the blue-state plaintiffs have changed legal theories, changed forums, added defendants, dismissed cases, and declined to pursue appeals. The strategy has worked. Many suits raising these theories are pending across the country, but the Supreme Court has never resolved whether the U.S. Constitution — and federal law more broadly — permits states and localities to impose liability on energy companies for global emissions.

JR

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Jeremy Rozansky

Jeremy Rozansky is a lawyer in Washington, D.C. The views expressed here are his own.

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For more than a decade, a collection of blue states, cities, and other climate plaintiffs have been asking courts across the country to decide an important question of national (and international) significance — all while doing everything they can to keep the issue away from the U.S. Supreme Court.

These plaintiffs seek to use state laws and state courts to hold energy companies liable for the worldwide effects of global emissions. That effort runs up against the basic constitutional rule that “no state can legislate for another,” and also against federal policy — most notably, the Clean Air Act — that preempts state regulation of global emissions. To evade Supreme Court review, the blue-state plaintiffs have changed legal theories, changed forums, added defendants, dismissed cases, and declined to pursue appeals. The strategy has worked. Many suits raising these theories are pending across the country, but the Supreme Court has never resolved whether the U.S. Constitution — and federal law more broadly — permits states and localities to impose liability on energy companies for global emissions.