‘Rich Hippies’ vs. Big Oil: Supreme Court Takes Up Landmark Climate Case
BOULDER, Colo. — Maddison Schink still remembers the phone call from her grandmother as hurricane-force winds drove a wildfire through their Colorado neighborhood. What would you like me to save from our house?
Flustered, the college student named the first three things she could think of: a camera, a childhood blanket, a backpack covered in patches.
Her grandmother grabbed the belongings, threw them into her truck and drove to safety. The Marshall Fire ultimately spared their home just outside Boulder. Many neighbors were not so fortunate. The Dec. 30, 2021, blaze became Colorado’s most destructive wildfire on record, burning more than 1,100 homes and a hotel, and killing two people and multiple pets.
Experts say climate change is drying out regions that were once wetter and snowier, increasing the risk that embers from dry grasses, pushed by stronger windstorms, can reach suburban neighborhoods and ignite catastrophic fires—fires in which homes themselves become fuel.
Now the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether communities like Boulder can sue fossil fuel companies over their contribution to climate change. The city and county argue that taxpayers cannot—and should not—be forced to absorb all of the millions of dollars in additional costs that local governments face from wildfires, severe storms, extreme heat and flooding.
Schink and other Boulder-area residents filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the lawsuit against ExxonMobil and Suncor, oil companies the county describes as among the world’s largest contributors to climate change and as close collaborators in Colorado.
“It really just brought climate change home,” said Schink, now a 26-year-old graduate student at the University of Denver. “It’s here. It’s here to stay, and we need to do something about it.”
The case is the first the Supreme Court will hear when the justices return from their summer break on Oct. 5, and it is among the most consequential on this term’s docket. Dozens of similar suits have been filed across the country. Billions of dollars are potentially at stake. And climate change remains one of the most significant challenges facing the nation and the world.
The appeal arrives as the Trump administration—which is backing Exxon and Suncor—has moved to dismantle federal climate regulations, withdraw from international climate agreements and promote fossil fuel production. With federal action stalled or reversed, courts and litigation are likely to play a larger role in shaping climate policy.
It is not the first time the Supreme Court has entered this fight. In 2011, a unanimous court ruled that cities and states could not force major electric utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because that authority belongs to the federal government—a decision that largely ended the first major wave of climate lawsuits.
State and local governments then changed tactics. Instead of targeting greenhouse gas emitters, they focused on the fossil fuel industry. The new suits are modeled on successful challenges to tobacco and opioid companies, relying on consumer protection statutes and public-nuisance claims.
Boulder argues that oil companies intentionally misled the public for decades about the effects of climate change and the role fossil fuels played in worsening those effects, even as the companies knew they were contributing to the problem.
As evidence, Boulder points to a 1979 internal Exxon memo that listed the effects of rising carbon dioxide levels, including hotter and drier conditions in southwestern states, a diminished Colorado River and a more acute water shortage in the Southwest. In a 2000 New York Times advertisement titled “Unsettled Science,” ExxonMobil said that “fundamental gaps in knowledge leave scientists unable to make reliable predictions about future changes.”
“This case is about the big oil companies’ deception,” said Corey Riday-White, legal director of the Center for Climate Integrity. “They deceived the public for decades about the harms they knew their products were going to cause. And this case is about holding them accountable for that deception.”
Attorneys for the oil companies said in filings that Exxon and Suncor recognize that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change. They also said the appropriate policy approach is “balancing risk reduction with affordable energy.”
The Supreme Court is not deciding whether oil companies share responsibility for climate change. It is deciding whether Boulder can even make that argument in court.
Exxon and Suncor contend such suits are barred because a Colorado jury should not be allowed to regulate the global atmosphere.
“This is about whether a bunch of rich hippies in Boulder County are allowed to dictate environment and energy policy to the entire rest of the world,” said Todd Zywicki, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School who filed a brief supporting the oil companies’ position.
Boulder’s attorneys argue in court filings that even when federal law regulates a product, states have been allowed to bring deceptive marketing claims—such as suits alleging tobacco companies misled consumers about the safety of “light” cigarettes.
Zywicki rejected that comparison. While someone might have quit smoking if they had known the health risks, he said, people are not going to stop using fossil fuels.
“What are they saying here? ‘If I had known there could be a potential link between jet fuel and the environment, I wouldn’t have flown on a plane over the last twenty years?’” Zywicki said. “It’s absurd.”
Fordham Law School Professor Adam Orford, an expert on environmental law, said that if the lawsuit is allowed to proceed, oil companies would not necessarily be forced to pay damages. A court could conclude, for example, that Boulder residents drive cars and take other actions that have contributed to climate change to such a degree that no single party is responsible.
But if the Supreme Court agrees with Suncor and Exxon that Boulder cannot even sue, Orford said, that would mark a major change in how the law usually works.
“It is just one of those very important, fundamental precepts in the U.S. legal system that if someone hurts you, you should be able to bring them into court and at least ask them to compensate you for the harm,” Orford said. “That is really what these cases are trying to accomplish.”
Bridget Fahey, an expert at the University of Chicago Law School on how the federal government and states interact, likewise described the oil companies’ argument as striking and novel. Rather than pointing to specific language in a federal law or the Constitution, she said, Suncor and Exxon are advancing a broader sense that Congress is better suited than state courts to regulate climate change.
“I think it’s more of a vibes case than a law case,” she said.
The justices may ultimately frame the dispute as an interstate pollution issue governed by federal law, rather than a suit about corporate conduct that can be tried under state law. Other courts that have taken up the issue have reached different conclusions.
If the Supreme Court finds the issue too difficult to resolve, the justices have an off-ramp: they are also deciding whether they should be involved at this stage of the litigation.
Justice Samuel Alito, one of the court’s six Republican-appointed justices, recused himself from the case. That raises the possibility of a 4-4 split, which would allow the suit to continue.
For Schink, the Marshall Fire survivor, the legal battle is personal. She still struggles with the aftermath. Although she had long been interested in environmental issues, she decided to pursue a graduate degree focused on international climate diplomacy because she believes meaningful change must happen on a large scale. She has also signed up for air quality alerts from the Suncor refinery in Colorado.
Earlier this year, when a small grass fire broke out near her home, she canceled her plans and recorded a video of all her belongings for insurance purposes—just in case.
“I have a really hard time not watching fire alerts, air quality alerts,” she said. “It was windy, I heard firetrucks and it was like, ‘time to prepare for the worst.’”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Rich hippies’ versus big oil. Supreme Court hears landmark climate change case.