In May 2024, a group of nineteen states went to the U.S. Supreme Court and sought permission to file a lawsuit in the Court against the states of California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. The essence of the lawsuit is that the defendant states are interfering with the sovereignty of the plaintiff states by bringing false advertising and other claims against fossil fuel companies arising out of the environmental harm they are causing.
As the plaintiffs explained, "numerous state and local governments have launched a frenzy of lawsuits invoking their own laws to demand billions of dollars in damages allegedly related to past, present, and future climate change owing, they say, to interstate gas emissions."
A few days ago, the Supreme Court denied the plaintiffs motion for leave to file their complaint, allowing the states' lawsuits against the fossil fuel companies to continue. Although the Court didn't write an opinion here, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, writing in a brief opinion that they didn't believe that the Court had discretion to decline to hear a lawsuit between states. They wrote, "The Court today exercises that power to reject a suit involving nearly half the States in the Nation, which alleges serious constitutional violations."
For now, then, at least as far as the Supreme Court is concerned, the states can continue to pursue false advertising and other claims against the fossil fuel companies. (For more information about these lawsuits, check out, for example, our blog post about California's lawsuit.)
Alabama v. California, 2025 WL 746326 (2025).
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