Advocacy groups are questioning whether one member of the Supreme Court’s conservative wing should bow out of a case that could help energy companies fight lawsuits seeking to hold them responsible for coastal degradation in Louisiana.
The justices on Jan. 12 are poised to hear arguments in Chevron USA v. Plaquemines Parish as part of an ongoing fight over how much accountability oil majors bear for damaging the Bayou State’s coastline with oil production that dates back to World War II.
Progressive government watchdog group Accountable.US in a recent report noted that one oil company withdrew from the multiparty lawsuit just before the court agreed in June to take up the case. The company, Burlington Resources Oil & Gas, is a wholly owned subsidiary of ConocoPhillips, in which Justice Samuel Alito has held stock.
Accountable noted that Alito over the past decade has stepped aside from cases in which ConocoPhillips and its subsidiaries were parties. The Louisiana case “appears to be the first instance in which ConocoPhillips or one of its subsidiaries have preemptively removed itself from the cert petition shortly before conference,” the report said.
