The Supreme Court will hear a major climate change case involving a devastating Colorado wildfire
LOUISVILLE, Colo. (AP) — Less than an hour after the first warning that a wildfire was headed for her suburban street, Tawnya Somauroo's Colorado home was in ashes.
She has worked tirelessly for nearly five years to rebuild her house and help ensure her neighborhood can withstand the next blaze. But as climate change contributes to more frequent wildfires, she worries that the careful landscaping, metal fencing and flame-resistant siding are not enough.
“We lost our homes and they left us to figure out for ourselves how to make our neighborhoods safe again,” Somauroo said. “At the end of the day, it comes out of our pockets, you know? And it does feel like maybe the oil and gas industry should have a part in this.”
She lives in Boulder County, one of dozens of jurisdictions across the United States suing oil and gas companies to help pay for damage from disasters linked to climate change.
The case is part of a wave of climate change litigation across the country and the world, with billions of dollars at stake. On Monday, the first day of the Supreme Court's new term, the justices will hear the Boulder case that could decide the fate of others like it.
The city and county of Boulder first sued two oil companies in 2018, years before the fire. They argued that Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil had violated state law by deceiving the public about their contributions to climate change and sought unspecified damages to help cover the cost of worsening disasters.
The companies say that a flood of lawsuits in state courts is not the way to deal with the global issue.
“The problem is that climate change is caused by pretty much everybody living on earth,” said Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the Manufacturers' Accountability Project, an industry group. “We need to figure out how to address that. We need to address it in a very meaningful way. This litigation doesn’t do that.”
The companies have the backing of the Trump administration. Federal government attorneys say the lawsuits are a backdoor way to regulate heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions and amount to an unconstitutional power grab.
“No one state can superimpose its own regulatory preferences on the rest — least of all to address a global problem that exists almost entirely outside its borders and affects the world at large,” they wrote.
The Clean Air Act, they say, allows the federal government, rather than states, to regulate emissions. The Republican administration has largely used that power to roll back environmental regulations.
Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency ceded some of its climate authority by repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas. The move could complicate its argument.
Boulder says it is not trying to regulate emissions beyond its borders, only holding companies accountable for local costs.
“Boulder County and city aren’t trying to change what’s happening in Texas or New York, they’re trying to get compensation for things happening now in Colorado,” said Sam Sankar, senior vice president at Earthjustice, which filed an amicus brief in the case.
Climate change was considered a factor in the 2021 Marshall Fire that destroyed Somauroo’s home, after the county's suit was originally filed. The total damage was estimated at $2 billion. It was the costliest wildfire in Colorado history.
“Local county municipal governments play a very important role in helping front line communities adapt to climate change. This case could very well set a precedent,” said Chris Winter, executive director of the Getches-Wilkinson Center, an environmental research group in Colorado.
The case will come before a conservative-majority Supreme Court where environmental regulations have not always fared well, including a 2022 decision that limited the EPA's authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
Only eight of the nine justices will be on the bench, though. Justice Samuel Alito recused himself just a week before arguments after facing calls to step aside because he owns stock in oil companies.
That creates the possibility of a tie vote in the case, though it's unclear how likely that might be. The court is also weighing a question that experts say is a potential “off-ramp”: whether the justices have jurisdiction to hear the case at this stage.
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Whitehurst reported from Washington.
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