• What happened: Some of the world’s largest energy producers have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review Hawaii’s climate nuisance lawsuit.
• Dig deeper: The companies allege that states and local governments are inappropriately trying to regulate emissions, which is a federal responsibility, but Hawaii’s Supreme Court has ruled that the case is about disinformation, not emissions.
  • The companies have argued that federal law—not individual states—should dictate major policy considerations like climate emissions, and pointed to a federal appeals court decision finding that a similar lawsuit by New York City was “sprawling” and “outside the limits of state law.”
• ICYMI: SCOTUS recently refused to move another climate nuisance lawsuit to federal court, a move plaintiffs and attorneys have taken as a green light to continue filing climate nuisance cases. Learn more in the TLR Advocate
• In their own words: “The Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision was incorrect, and it provides this Court with the ideal opportunity to address whether the state-law claims asserted in this nationwide litigation are even allowable before the energy industry is threatened with potentially enormous judgments”–Sunoco v. City and County of Honolulu
• What about Texas? The energy industry employs tens of thousands of Texans and fuels our lives. A patchwork of decisions from state judges puts those jobs and the affordability of American energy at risk.
• TLR Thoughts: Should SCOTUS decide to review the case, it could be a defining moment for climate nuisance litigation. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again–issues like climate change that impact national public policy should be addressed by the appropriate legislative body, not individual state courts.

Read the full article here.