The Supreme Court on Tuesday set the opening day of its new term — Oct. 5 — as the date for oral arguments in its blockbuster climate showdown.
The case, Suncor v. Boulder, has spurred calls for two of the justices to recuse themselves as they weigh whether federal law or the Constitution bars local governments from suing fossil fuel companies over the costs of addressing climate change.
At stake are dozens of lawsuits filed by cities, counties and states that energy producers say could cost them billions of dollars.
More than two dozen “friend of the court” briefs were filed Monday in support of the local governments, arguing the lawsuits that accuse the companies of misleading the public are firmly rooted in states’ authorities to protect residents.
The industry and its allies launched a similar influence campaign in May after the industry urged the Supreme Court to block the lawsuits.
The Trump administration, which is siding with fossil fuel companies, has asked it be allowed 10 minutes of argument time.
“Such suits severely interfere with the federal government’s constitutional and statutory responsibilities,” Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris told the court, noting the administration has filed challenges against several climate lawsuits.
Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush appointee who holds stock in oil companies, has rebuffed calls from government watchdog groups to step back from the case because of his financial holdings.
Conservative groups have called for a probe of whether Justice Elena Kagan — a member of the high court’s liberal wing — violated ethics rules by not stepping back because she wrote the foreword to a judicial reference manual that contained a since-deleted chapter on climate science.
The court also will take up a case Oct. 7 to determine whether the U.S. Air Force’s detonation of munitions on a beach in northern Guam violated federal environmental law.
The court in March granted the Trump administration’s petition seeking to overturn a ruling by a West Coast federal appeals court that sided with local activists pushing the Air Force to conduct a National Environmental Policy Act review of its operations on Guam’s Tarague Beach.
