ExxonMobil and Suncor to U.S. Supreme Court: Stop Boulder and San Miguel Co. climate change lawsuit

By Jackson Guilfoil | Denver Business Journal

Story Highlights                                                                                                                                                                                                                    • ExxonMobil and Suncor petition Supreme Court to dismiss climate lawsuit.                                                                                                         • Colorado Supreme Court allowed lawsuit to proceed in state court.                                                                                                                                  • At issue is whether climate change impacts should be federal or state matter.

Two oil and gas titans are again asking the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss a climate change lawsuit levied against them in Colorado state court by Boulder and another local government.

Irving, Texas-based ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) and Calgary-based Suncor Energy (NYSE: SU) on Friday petitioned the nation’s highest court to take up the lawsuit and deem climate change impacts a federal matter, saying “there are few, if any, more consequential questions pending in the lower courts concerning the relationship between state and federal law.”

The appeal to have U.S. Supreme Court intervention — the third such attempt in the years-old case — follows an unsuccessful effort to kill the lawsuit in Colorado.

In May, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the city of Boulder, county of Boulder and San Miguel County have the jurisdiction to sue the companies in state court and seek damages for climate change harms.

The ruling allowed the case to proceed but expressed no opinion on the merits of the Boulder and San Miguel County claims.

Suncor owns the three oil refineries in Commerce City, the only refineries in Colorado.

The oil companies argue the Boulder lawsuit, originally filed in 2018, should be preempted by federal law and that the case attempts to regulate fossil fuel companies through state courts instead of legislation. 

“Boulder, Colorado, cannot make energy policy for the entire country. The Court should grant review and clarify that state law cannot impose the costs of global climate change on a subset of the world’s energy producers chosen by a single municipality,” the oil companies’ petition said.

At stake may be billions of dollars in damages that the companies could be considered liable for in numerous state court cases nationwide.

In February, an attorney representing Boulder argued to the Colorado Supreme Court that instead of trying to compel out-of-state conduct, the municipalities are seeking local damages for local harms. 

The suit accuses the companies of intentionally misleading the public about the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions to maintain demand for fossil fuels and accuses the oil giants of creating public nuisances stemming from natural disasters, the spread of diseases and other things made worse by climate change.

The companies have tried to have the nation’s highest court take up the case twice before. In 2023, the justices declined to hear it and batted it back down to Colorado’s state courts, though that ruling noted Justice Brett Kavanaugh supported having the U.S. Supreme Court hear arguments in the Boulder case. 

ExxonMobil and Suncor’s newest writ suggests the justices may want to have the U.S. Solicitor General come in to argue the views of the new Trump administration on the matter.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL