Oil and gas companies fighting climate change lawsuits and regulations in three states took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost this week.
POLITICO’s Morning Energy Report had more about it:
OIL GETS 1-2-3 PUNCH AT SCOTUS: Big oil companies lost an intermediate but closely watched battle over climate change at the Supreme Court on Tuesday when the justices declined to save them from three different state-level lawsuits. While such suits are effectively barred at the federal level, some states and cities are testing whether state laws on public nuisance and product liability have opened a door to sue fossil fuel companies. The Supreme Court rejected the companies’ request to halt state-level proceedings in separate cases brought by Baltimore, Rhode Island and Boulder, Colo., while the companies appeal the venue issue in the federal courts. That means the states and cities can get cracking on their lawsuits.
Baltimore City Solicitor Andre Davis said in a statement that the high court’s decision brings “us one step closer to putting the high costs of adapting to and surviving the harmful consequences of climate change where they belong: on the fossil fuel companies who knowingly caused the crisis in the first place.”
