Justice Alito recuses from major climate-change case to be heard next week
by Stephen Dinan · The Washington TimesJustice Samuel A. Alito Jr. will recuse himself when the Supreme Court hears a major climate change case next week.
The court’s clerk announced Justice Alito’s recusal in a brief note Monday to the participants in the case, Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County.
The justices are slated to hear the case on Oct. 5, when the high court opens its new term.
People were interested in these podcasts
Justices don’t have to give a reason for sitting out a case.
Climate activist groups had called on Justice Alito to recuse himself, citing his ownership of stock in several energy companies, though none of them are parties to the specific case. The activists said the outcome of the case could affect the firms Justice Alito does have an interest in.
He had declined to recuse himself as the case made its way to the justices, through briefing and the grant of certiorari to hear the case.
The court didn’t say what might have changed.
Jonathan Adler, a law professor at the College of William & Mary, said that the move likely cost the energy companies a vote of support.
Advertisement Advertisement
“The decision is understandable, but the timing is odd,” he wrote on social media.
Justice Alito did sit out the other decisions earlier when the high court said it would not hear similar cases involving oil companies for which he did own stock.
His decision on Suncor leaves eight members to hear the case — and raises the possibility of a 4-4 split in a final ruling, which would leave the lower court decision in place, and the broad legal issues unsettled.
Suncor and ExxonMobil, the other firm in the lawsuit, are challenging the city of Boulder’s claims under a Colorado law for damages they say are attributable to climate change — and which they blame on the energy companies.
The firms say federal law governs climate litigation.
Advertisement Advertisement
But Colorado courts declined to dismiss the lawsuit.
Suncor now wants the justices to step in.
In a case last year, the high court ruled 8-0 that a Louisiana parish’s lawsuit against Chevron for coastal erosion the community blamed on oil exploration should be heard in federal court, not state court.
That case turned on the intricacies of whether Chevron’s development of aviation gas stemming from World War II was deemed to be at the federal government’s direction — and therefore belonged in federal court.
Advertisement Advertisement
The Boulder case more squarely gets at the emerging question of whether localities can try to use state laws to assert control over national climate issues.
So far, the going has been rough for states in federal courts.
Michigan’s attempt to use antitrust laws against energy firms was rejected by a federal court last week. The judge said the state couldn’t connect higher gas prices to the companies’ alleged collusion to suppress renewable energy sources.
And in New York, a federal court last week ruled that the state’s 2024 law seeking to penalize energy firms $75 billion was unconstitutional.
Advertisement Advertisement
The judge said the law interfered with Congress’s power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce.
Contact the author
Stephen Dinan
Follow author updates Follow Click to follow. Manage followed authors