Colorado Supreme To Consider Whether Lawfare Suit Against Fossil Fuels Companies Can Proceed

Sadly, I do not think any of the lawyers for the fossil fuels companies will ask the plaintiffs “have you yourselves given up your own use of fossil fuels?” Nor will the judges ask the plaintiffs the same

Colorado Supreme Court to decide whether Boulder’s landmark climate-change lawsuit against Suncor, Exxon can proceed

A 4-year-old lawsuit blaming Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil for climate-change harms to Boulder County will go before the Colorado Supreme Court this week as the two oil and gas companies try to convince the justices that the state has no jurisdiction over the issue.

The companies’ attorneys will argue that greenhouse gas emissions released by oil and gas production from within the United States and countries around the world do not fall to individual states to regulate. Instead, they contend, it’s up to the federal government, through the Clean Air Act, to decide how to regulate emissions from oil and gas operators.

Meanwhile, lawyers representing the city of Boulder and Boulder County — the plaintiffs in the lawsuit — will argue that Colorado law allow local governments to pursue claims against Suncor and ExxonMobil because the municipalities are not trying to regulate emissions but, rather, want to receive compensation for the damage caused by the companies’ pollution.

What will the Court decide? Will they take the same route as the New Jersey shakedown suit? In other words, dead, because states cannot seek damages for nationwide and international emissions, as their claims cannot be governed by NJ state laws

Daniela Colaiacovo, a spokeswoman for EarthRights International, which is representing Boulder County, said attorneys were not available to talk about the case prior to Tuesday’s arguments before the state Supreme Court.

But Sean Powers, an EarthRights senior attorney, addressed the matter a statement after a Boulder District Court judge refused in June to dismiss the case.

“Since the beginning, defendants have been arguing against a case we did not plead,” Powers said. “Plaintiffs are not trying to litigate a solution to the climate crisis, they are seeking redress for harms they have suffered and will continue to suffer. The only conduct at issue is defendants’ own: what they knew, when they knew it and what they did with that knowledge.”

In other words, a shakedown.

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