Over the past decade, some three dozen states and local governments have sued the biggest oil companies in the world, arguing that the industry hid what it knew about the dangers of global warming.
The suits are considered a major threat to fossil fuel companies, potentially on the scale of the tobacco industry settlement a quarter-century ago that held cigarette makers financially responsible for the health consequences of smoking for generations of people.
Now the campaign to stop the oil lawsuits is heating up.
In recent weeks, President Trump declared the lawsuits a threat to the American economy, calling them “ideologically motivated” obstacles to his goal of energy dominance. The Justice Department took the aggressive step of pre-emptively suing two states to try to prevent them from even filing lawsuits like these.
Environmentalists are growing concerned that the industry will rehash past efforts to lobby for a federal immunity provision, similar to the 2005 shield law that protects gun makers from liability when their weapons are used in crimes.
The lawsuits have taken on greater importance, their supporters say, as the Trump administration retreats from policies to fight climate change and wean the nation from burning fossil fuels. As states and cities face rising costs from flooding, wildfires and other disasters intensified by global warming, they view litigation as one of the few remaining ways to bolster their budgets.
“The climate crisis is here, and the costs of surviving it are rising every day,” said Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii this month as he announced that his state would join the parade of lawsuits. “The burden should fall on those who deceived and failed to warn consumers about the climate dangers lurking in their products.”
His remarks were notable given that just hours earlier, the Justice Department, in a major escalation, had sued his state, and also Michigan, to try to prevent them from filing such lawsuits. Pamela Bondi, the United States attorney general, called the suits a threat to national security and “illegitimate impediments to the production of affordable, reliable energy that Americans deserve.”
Ms. Bondi also announced suits against New York and Vermont over their new climate superfund laws, which seek to impose liability for past emissions on companies to fund climate adaptation projects.
Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, has indicated the state will proceed with its lawsuit.
But the Justice Department’s actions could deter other states and municipalities from filing, or even sway ones who have sued to abandon their cases. A day after Ms. Bondi’s announcement, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico quietly dropped its case. A spokeswoman for Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón said the suit had been filed by a previous administration and that she was committed to “pro-growth energy agenda.”
The oil companies and their allies argue that the litigation is an attempt by local officials to wrest power over energy policy away from the federal government.
When states and cities “try to create policy through judicial fiat in a random, haphazard way throughout the country, in multiple jurisdictions, you’re creating havoc in the free market,” said Alan Wilson, attorney general of South Carolina, in a recent briefing hosted by the Washington Legal Foundation, which promotes free enterprise.
Supporters say the cases are a step toward accountability. A report Wednesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, detailed what it said was decades of evidence of a cover-up by oil companies. “Without intervention, these companies will continue their deception, delaying the urgent action needed to mitigate further climate destruction,” the report said.
Both arguments have gotten mixed receptions from judges.
Many of the cases have spent years bogged down in debate about whether they should proceed in state courts (where they were filed) or be moved to federal courts (where oil companies anticipate they would be more likely to prevail). The oil companies argue that the matters fall under federal law.
Two recent attempts to get the Supreme Court to take up that question have failed. In one, oil companies had petitioned the justices to review a ruling by the State Supreme Court of Hawaii that a lawsuit brought by Honolulu could proceed in state court.
The other was a more unusual request, by attorneys general in Republican-led states including Mr. Wilson, the South Carolina attorney general, to block Democratic-led states from suing oil companies over climate change. However, observers expect the high court to revisit the matter in the future, once the cases have progressed in state courts.
The claims in the three dozen or so lawsuits vary, but generally include allegations like violations of consumer protection laws, deception and public nuisance. None have gone to trial yet. However, industry allies point out that in 2019, Exxon Mobil won a similar lawsuit, which centered on different claims, of investor fraud, in a jury trial in New York.
Several cases have been dismissed by judges, including ones brought by New York City and New Jersey, and by municipal governments in Maryland. Some of those cases have appeals pending.
In 2021, the federal appellate court for the Second Circuit upheld the dismissal of a suit brought by New York City against B.P., Chevron and other companies, a decision that is also frequently cited by the industry and its allies. “Such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law,” Judge Richard J. Sullivan wrote in the opinion.
But other cases are advancing toward trial.
On Monday, the State Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed a lower court’s decision that a case brought by the city and county of Boulder and the county of San Miguel against Exxon Mobil and Suncor, a Canadian energy company, can proceed in a state court. The lawsuit outlines the costly climate hazards the state faces, including drought, floods and wildfires.
A spokeswoman for Exxon, Elise Otten, called the case meritless and said it “has no place before a state court.” She also pointed the company’s clean energy investments add up to more than half the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Suncor did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Colorado case demonstrates the split among jurists over the high-stakes litigation. In a dissenting opinion, two justices noted, “Boulder is not its own republic.”
The author of the dissent, Justice Carlos Samour Jr., urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue given the number of municipalities filing similar claims. “To borrow from Fleetwood Mac’s old hit song, the message our court conveys to Boulder and other Colorado municipalities today is that ‘you can go your own way’ to regulate interstate and international air pollution,” he wrote. “In our indivisible nation, that just can’t be right.”
Karen Zraick covers legal affairs for the Climate desk and the courtroom clashes playing out over climate and environmental policy.
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