Environmental policy advocates are laying out their legal strategy heading into the Supreme Court’s next term.
The Center for Progressive Reform hosted a webinar arguing that they can use consumer protection and tort law to legally penalize energy companies for alleged climate change. The case, Suncor v. Counter Commissioners of Boulder County, is scheduled to be heard by the court on October 5th.
“‘The case provides an important opportunity for the courts to provide a mechanism by which local governments forced to spend public money on climate adaptation measures will have the opportunity to hold companies that extract and market fossil fuels accountable for their contributions to the problem,’ Robert Glicksman, a George Washington University Law School professor and one of the panelists at the Center for Progressive Reform webinar, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.”
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County on Oct. 5, a landmark climate case examining whether federal law preempts state-law claims seeking damages over interstate and international greenhouse gas emissions. Boulder County, the city of Boulder and San Miguel County sued Suncor and ExxonMobil in 2018, alleging the companies knowingly promoted fossil fuels while concealing or misrepresenting their climate risks. The companies dispute the allegations arguing the claims are preempted by federal law.
Portraying Suncor as a consumer protection case gives Colorado a stronger claim to state authority than if the lawsuit were simply an attempt to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, Tulane University Law School professor Rebecca Bratspies said on the webinar.”
One legal expert, executive director of Alliance For Consumers O.H. Skinner, told the Daily Caller that Congress could use its Commerce Clause authority to preempt state laws on legal liability for energy companies for alleged climate change, but they have yet to do so.
In the webinar, one professor said that the case amounts to a “human rights” issue, invoking Malcom X as an inspiration for his positions. He also added that they may consider opening up their efforts to international organizations, such as the United Nations.
“The Clean Air Act, cuts against the industry’s position because it gives states a role in implementing federal air pollution law, contains provisions preserving state authority and does not expressly preempt state common-law tort claims, Bratspies argued.
Congress enacted the Clean Air Act in 1970 and substantially amended it in 1977 and 1990, creating the federal framework for regulating air pollution while preserving certain state authority.
‘The issue before the Supreme Court is whether a Colorado court can hear these allegations that the company’s violations of Colorado Consumer Protection Law cause harms in Colorado,’ said Bratspies.
But the panelists’ discussion of fossil fuel accountability did not stop with state courts.
When asked about what options communities would have if the Supreme Court blocks climate deception lawsuits such as Suncor, Howard University professor Lemir Teron argued advocates should think about climate change not simply as an environmental issue, but as a human rights issue.”
Read more in the Daily Caller.
