Why fossil fuel allies are pressuring the Supreme Court

Presented by Southern Environmental Law Center: Your guide to the political forces shaping the energy transformation

Jun 06, 2024 View in browser   By Lesley Clark Presented by  Leonard Leo speaks to media at Trump Tower in New York in 2016. | Carolyn Kaster/AP The oil and gas industry is eager to get the Supreme Court’s attention. And it's got powerful allies to help. Individuals with ties to Leonard Leo — the powerful conservative activist who served as former President Donald Trump's unofficial judicial adviser — have clamored for the court to take up an industry-led petition that could erase a raft of lawsuits lodged against major oil producers. The justices could announce in the coming days whether they will take up the case, as I write today. Dozens of cities, counties and states have sued the industry in state court, accusing it of misleading the public about the dangers of burning fossil fuels. If successful, they could force oil companies to pony up hundreds of billions of dollars for harming the public — much like tobacco and opioid manufacturers before them. The oil industry has asked the high court to block the municipalities’ rush to state courthouses. Their argument was echoed in a flood of recent opinion pieces in conservative outlets and social media campaigns helmed by critics of the litigation — including those with ties to Leo. They argue that the lawsuits are a veiled attempt to steer energy policy and that climate change does not fall under local consumer protection or public nuisance laws. “The climate nuisance, fraud, and misrepresentation cases are reaching the point of no return,” Carrie Severino, a Leo ally and former clerk to conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, warned this week in the National Review. Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, is a judicial activist who helped select Trump's three Supreme Court nominees. A 2023 POLITICO review found that most conservative legal briefs filed in connection with high-profile Supreme Court cases had links to a small cadre of activists aligned with Leo. The court could announce as early as Monday whether it will take up the industry petition, Sunoco v. City and County of Honolulu. It wouldn’t be the first time: The justices took up the matter as recently as 2021, instructing lower courts to give the industry another chance to argue that the cases should be heard in federal court, where the industry believes they’re more likely to be tossed. But after a line of federal appellate judges insisted state courts are the appropriate venue, the industry went back to the high court in February. This time, they are appealing a decision by Hawaii’s Supreme Court that blocked oil companies from dismissing Honolulu’s lawsuit against them. The campaign comes as Republican attorneys general in 19 states took the unusual step last month of launching their own bid at the Supreme Court to kill climate lawsuits filed by some of their Democratic counterparts. All the attorneys are members of the Republican Attorneys General Association — which is funded in part by the Leo-led Concord Fund. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page also weighed in with a request for the court to intervene, calling the climate liability lawsuits "unconstitutional coups." Legal observers say the efforts to sway the justices are unprecedented. "Between the media campaign and the recent lawsuit from conservative state AGs, the oil companies’ desperation is showing,” said Jenny Rushlow, dean of the Maverick Lloyd School for the Environment at Vermont Law and Graduate School.   It's Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Lesley Clark. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to lclark@eenews.net.   A message from Southern Environmental Law Center: Burning trees for energy devastates forests, harms nearby communities, which are disproportionately Black and low-income, and makes climate change worse. An upcoming Treasury Department decision on clean energy tax credits for the biomass industry could undermine President Biden’s climate agenda and environmental justice commitment. Redirecting tax credits to truly clean energy industries like solar, wind, and storage will accelerate our energy transition, combat climate change, and create stable jobs. Learn more here.   Listen to today’s POLITICO Energy podcast Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: In a live taping at the POLITICO Energy Summit, host Catherine Morehouse sat down with Willie Phillips, the chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to discuss the agency's agenda.   A message from Southern Environmental Law Center:   Power Centers A woman is silhouetted against the setting sun during a 2023 heat wave in Kansas City, Missouri. | Charlie Riedel/AP World nears climate redline The world is careening toward a major planetary milestone. Nations are striving to halt global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius — yet temperatures already are pushing above that threshold, writes Chelsea Harvey. A new report from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service warns that the last 11 months in a row have all seen global average warming above 1.5 C. And the last 12 have all been characterized by record-breaking monthly heat. Temperatures last month hovered about 1.52 degrees above Earth’s preindustrial average. Plastics face a trust issue Bracing for a wave of lawsuits from advocacy groups and state attorneys general, plastic producers are spending money to boost stagnant recycling rates and address public distrust, reports Ellie Borst. California Attorney General Rob Bonta recently told Reuters he is “weeks” away from releasing his office’s findings from a two-year probe into the roles Exxon Mobil and other petrochemical or fossil fuel companies have played in pushing a “decades-long campaign of deception.” A spokesperson for Bonta’s office recently confirmed there are no further updates. Oil politics The oil and natural gas industry’s main lobbying group defended a dinner with Trump, who asked attendees to spend $1 billion to get him reelected, writes Timothy Cama. The American Petroleum Institute accused Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ron Wyden of Oregon of “false premises” in their letter investigating the dinner and called for “less political gamesmanship.”   THE GOLD STANDARD OF DEFENSE POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries, like defense, equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists. Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other. 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Subscriber Zone A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. Solar panels are manufactured at a plant in Walbridge, Ohio. | Tony Dejak/AP U.S. solar manufacturers aren't producing enough to support domestic demand. A new report comes as the Biden administration's tariff exemption on solar modules from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia expires today. Republican lawmakers sent letters this week asking the Biden administration to bar trade with two Chinese battery companies that do business with Ford and Volkswagen, alleging deep ties to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Willie Phillips on Wednesday urged Congress to bring U.S. natural gas producers and pipelines under more direct regulation after storms in recent years caused widespread energy outages in Texas and across the Eastern United States. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.   A message from Southern Environmental Law Center: Burning trees for energy devastates forests, harms the health of nearby communities, which are disproportionately Black and low-income, and makes climate change worse. An upcoming Treasury Department decision on whether the biomass industry should receive clean energy tax credits could significantly undermine President Biden’s climate agenda and environmental justice commitment. Ensuring tax credits go toward truly clean energy industries, such as solar, wind and storage will accelerate our energy transition, combat climate change and create stable jobs. Learn more here.     JOIN US ON 6/12 FOR A TALK ON THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY: As air travel soars again, policymakers and airlines are grappling with a series of contemporary challenges to the industry's future. Join POLITICO on June 12 for a topical and timely conversation with government leaders and aviation stakeholders about the state of the airline industry. 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