The Supreme Court appeared interested in hearing a case this week from the state of Hawaii seeking to hold major oil companies responsible for climate change, leading some Democrats to suggest the court is “controlled” by the fossil fuel industry.
The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Department of Justice for comment on a petition seeking review of a lawsuit brought by the City of Honolulu against major fuel companies. Sunoco, Exxon, ChevronThe company claims that its products cause greenhouse gas emissions and global warming without warning consumers about the risks.
The city has invoked a series of state laws, including public nuisance and trespass actions, and argued that the companies should pay billions of dollars to the state to help mitigate the effects of climate change, including weather events, sea level rise, heat waves, flooding and global warming in general.
The high court did not set a deadline for the Ministry of Justice to seek the attorney general’s opinion, but the attorney general’s request suggests the court is keen to hear the case.
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People hold signs calling on President Joe Biden to support the Green New Deal and end support for pipelines and the fossil fuel industry, in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 29, 2021. (Tim Evans/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The energy companies first appealed to the Hawaii Supreme Court, arguing that federal law prevents states from effectively setting statewide energy policy.
But the court disagreed and ruled that the case should go forward to trial, with one justice saying that “the aloha spirit inspires constitutional interpretation.”
“It is important that the U.S. Supreme Court grants review. The Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision is in stark contradiction with U.S. Supreme Court precedent and federal circuit court decisions, including the Second Circuit’s decision to dismiss a similar New York City lawsuit, which found that a litigation of this magnitude exceeds the limits of state law,” Chevron lawyer Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher told Fox News Digital.
“These baseless state and local lawsuits violate the federal Constitution and obstruct federal energy policy,” he said.
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A pumpjack photographed on Wednesday, March 30, 2022, in Tatum, New Mexico. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio, File)
But some Democrats and liberal supporters have begun to preemptively criticize the Supreme Court.
Last week, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, posted on X:[t]His control of the Supreme Court’s delays and interference with fossil fuel emissions regulations has already saved polluters hundreds of billions of dollars — far more than it cost him to control the Court. But there’s no end to the greed and entitlement of fossil fuel polluters.”
Lisa Graves, executive director of the left-leaning watchdog group True North Research, told Rolling Stone that fossil fuel companies’ “efforts to avoid legal responsibility are backed by the very same organizations that helped put the majority of the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court into office.”
The Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization, and its affiliated lawyers and groups have discussed the case in seminars and journal articles, urging the Supreme Court to take up the case. The Federalist Society has made recommendations to Republican administrations to judges and justices across the country.
But Fox News Digital previously reported that the Hawaii lawsuit is being pushed by liberal dark money groups and their legal partners.
In his opinion rejecting the energy companies’ claims, Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald wrote that “Defendants knew the dangers of using fossil fuel products, ‘deliberately concealed and misrepresented the climate impacts of fossil fuel products,’ and engaged in ‘a sophisticated disinformation campaign that cast doubt on the science, causes, and effects of global warming,’ increasing fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and damaging Honolulu property and infrastructure.”
Last year, Fox News Digital quietly revealed that Recktenwald had given a lecture in May in collaboration with the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), a little-known judicial advocacy group funded by left-leaning nonprofits. According to ELI, the Climate Justice Project aims to educate judges around the country on how to handle climate change cases brought before them.
“As climate litigation increases, judges will have to consider complex scientific and legal issues, many of which are rapidly evolving,” the CJP said on its website. “To address these issues, the Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Justice Project will collaborate with leading national judicial education institutions to meet judges’ needs for foundational knowledge of climate science methods and concepts.”
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The Supreme Court will convene in Washington on Wednesday, June 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin)
The Sher Edling law firm, which represents the state of Hawaii before the Supreme Court and is working on dozens of climate pollution lawsuits on behalf of cities and states across the country, received $2.5 million in 2022 from New Venture Fund, a fund of liberal dark money firm Arabella Advisors, The Daily Caller reported.
In addition to sharing funding sources, Scheer Edling LLP and ELI share personnel. In February, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, revealed that former Biden administration official Anne Carlson had served as a consultant to Scheer Edling. About Climate Litigation While serving on the ELI board of directors.
“We’ve been raising awareness about the dangers of pollution lawsuits for over a year now,” Consumers Union executive director O.H. Skinner told Fox News Digital.
“These lawsuits represent a coordinated, dark-financed threat to ordinary consumers. The lawsuits, the pundits, the law firms, and the state court judges are all funded, supported, and trained by left-wing dark money.”
“And these lawsuits are supported in Congress by hypocrites like Sheldon Whitehouse, who lament dark money while filing legal briefs supporting pollution lawsuits backed by liberal dark money. The Whitehouse’s true goal, and the goal of most pollution lawsuits, is to remove from the marketplace products and services that do not align with progressive policies,” he said.
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“Left-wing dark money groups like the Climate Justice Project are brainwashing judges across the country with far-left climate change propaganda,” Carrie Severino, executive director of the Judicial Crisis Network, told Fox News Digital.
“The possibility of the Supreme Court hearing this case is a nightmare for these groups because the Supreme Court values constitutional principles like federalism over left-wing policy goals,” she said.
The Supreme Court could decide to hear Sunoco v. Honolulu as early as this summer.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Sen. Whitehouse and the Environmental Law Institute’s Shar Edling for comment.
