Washington DC - The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a crunch climate case, with justices wrestling over whether it followed the well-worn path of corporate accountability lawsuits or was instead a backdoor attempt to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The outcome of Suncor v. Boulder has the power to end dozens of similar lawsuits brought by jurisdictions nationwide, seeking damages from fossil fuel companies for their role in global warming and for allegedly carrying out deception campaigns to conceal their products' harms.
Outside the court, activists waved placards and decried the rising costs of climate catastrophes, calling on "Big Oil" to be held accountable for their "climate lies."
The city and county of Boulder, Colorado, sued ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy in 2018 for damages, claiming they "knowingly caused and contributed to the alteration of the climate" while "concealing and/or misrepresenting the dangers" of oil and gas.
They contend they have suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in losses from wildfires, flooding and other weather extremes stemming from climate change.
But Kannon Shanmugam, representing the oil giants, told justices the case "involves an unprecedented effort to use state law to regulate global conduct." Under Boulder's theory, he argued, they could "sue me on a nuisance claim for refilling my car and thereby contributing to global climate change."
Liberal Justice Elena Kagan pushed back, describing the case as "chapter three" in the story of corporate accountability lawsuits, where earlier chapters were litigation against the tobacco industry and against pharmaceutical companies that pushed opioids.