The Supreme Court has once again sidestepped efforts by the fossil fuel industry and its allies to quash a long-running legal dispute that could put oil and gas companies on the hook for billions of dollars for their contributions to climate change.
The justices Monday rejected a request by 19 Republican state attorneys general to challenge five of their Democratic counterparts who have sued energy companies for compensation for the costs of rising tides, intensifying storms and other disasters worsened by climate change. The court reached its decision over the objections of two members of its conservative supermajority.
Monday’s order marks the second time this year that the high court has passed on a chance to take up arguments that the lawsuits aren’t allowed under federal law or the Constitution. The justices in January rejected the oil industry’s appeal of a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling, allowing Honolulu’s legal challenge against Shell and other oil companies to play out in state court.
The last time the Supreme Court got involved in the litigation was in 2021, when it sided with oil companies on a hypertechnical question about whether the cases should be heard in the state courts where they were originally filed or federal courts where industry lawyers believed their clients were more likely to prevail.
