The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Biden administration to grant big oil’s request to thwart lawsuits that could leave them on the hook for billions of dollars.
The one-line order delays the process’s progress toward trial. It follows an unprecedented pressure campaign from far-right fossil fuel allies on the ground.
“Major oil companies are desperately fighting to avoid a lawsuit like Honolulu’s, which would expose the evidence of the fossil fuel industry’s climate lies for the entire world to see,” said Richard Wiles, president of the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity . which supports climate liability lawsuits.
Honolulu is one of dozens of cities and states suing oil giants for allegedly hiding the dangers of their products from the public. In October, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the case could go to trial.
But the defendants in February petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review that decision, arguing that the cases should be dismissed because emissions are a federal issue that cannot be tried in state courts.
The Supreme Court receives thousands of petitions each year, giving each petition a slim chance of being heard. But in recent weeks, right-wing fossil fuel allies have pushed the justices to grant oil companies’ request, publishing a slew of op-eds and ads on social media.
Some of the groups behind the pressure campaign — which experts say is unprecedented — are linked to far-right Supreme Court architect Leonard Leo, who co-chairs the ultraconservative legal advocacy group Federalist Society.
“I have never seen such an overt political campaign to influence the court in this way,” Patrick Parenteau, a professor and senior climate policy fellow at Vermont Law School, told the Guardian last week.
It’s not clear how much Monday’s order will delay the Honolulu case, which was filed in 2020. In October 2022, the Supreme Court referred a similar petition, involving a climate liability case brought by communities in Colorado, to the Department of Justice. The attorney general weighed in the following March and sided with the plaintiffs.
Pending an opinion in the Honolulu case, companies can also file motions to stay (or pause) proceedings in similar lawsuits brought by other cities and states, although it is not clear that the lower courts will grant them comply.
During the campaign, Biden pledged to push his Justice Department to “strategically support” climate litigation. Advocates say Monday’s order will give Biden’s Justice Department a chance to make good on that promise.
The attorney general, they say, should affirm the Hawaii Supreme Court’s earlier decision and call for the petition to be dismissed.
The oil companies insist that only federal policy should address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions. But the plaintiffs and their supporters say the lawsuit “does not seek to solve climate change or regulate emissions” but rather aims to force big oil companies to “stop lying and pay their fair share of the damage they knowingly caused,” said Alyssa Johl. , vice president of legal affairs at the Center for Climate Integrity.
Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in the Supreme Court’s consideration of the request, likely because he owned stock in ConocoPhillips, a defendant in the case.
