Supreme Court Has A Chance To Torch One Of The Left’s Favorite Legal Tactics

From fuel emissions standards to gas-powered vehicle bans to far-reaching climate disclosure rules, states like California are constantly testing how far state laws can go in shaping national climate policy. But for nearly a decade, activists and leftwing lawmakers have simultaneously pursued a backdoor strategy that seeks to use state courtrooms, not state or national legislatures, to sue oil and natural gas companies into ceasing production and accomplishing their goal of shutting down American energy.

Less flashy EV mandates and offshore wind subsidies, the barrage of suits filed against energy companies has flown under the public’s radar. That might be about to change: If a single one of these cases is successful, Americans across the country could soon be in for a rude awakening in the form of skyrocketing gasoline and home energy prices.

While not a single case has succeeded to date–and the only case to go to trial failed outright–billionaire-funded climate activist groups continue to solicit new plaintiffs. To halt the proliferation and minimize potential damage to consumers, the Supreme Court has an opportunity in this term to reject the dangerous theory that individual oil and natural-gas companies can be held liable for producing the products that fuel the modern world.

A group of Republican state attorneys general is taking action and giving the U.S. Supreme Court yet another opportunity to put an end to this madness. In Alabama v. California, nineteen Republican attorneys general filed a case with the Supreme Court against five Democrat-led states arguing that this partisan, activist-backed lawfare campaign is an unconstitutional attempt to use state tort law to regulate lawful, out-of-state conduct and impose a national climate policy via liability.

Alabama v. California also puts pressure on the Supreme Court to consider another petition–Sunoco LP v. City and County of Honolulu–that requests that the justices evaluate climate lawsuits on their merits. As I previously pointed out, the Honolulu petition argues that individual states should not be permitted to use state tort laws to sue for alleged damages that arise from interstate emissions, a matter inherently restricted to federal law; as a result, Honolulu’s case should have been dismissed.