The Colorado Supreme Court will allow a Boulder government lawsuit seeking to hold two of the state’s largest oil and gas companies responsible for climate-change harms to move forward, according to a ruling Monday.
The city of Boulder and Boulder County filed the lawsuit seven years ago, seeking to hold Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil accountable for driving climate change and the damages their pollution has caused in Boulder County.
The case wound its way through state and federal courts before the state Supreme Court heard arguments in February over whether the city and county have the authority to sue over air emissions that may not originate in Colorado or may drift somewhere else.
On Monday, the Colorado Supreme Court’s justices ruled that Boulder’s claims “are not preempted by federal law” and that a lower court did not get its ruling wrong. The state Supreme Court ruling sends the case back to district court.
Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett praised the ruling as an affirmation that corporations cannot mislead the public and avoid accountability.
“Our community has suffered significantly from the consequences of climate change, and today’s decision brings us one step closer to justice and the resources we need to protect our future,” Brocket said in a statement.
But the National Association of Manufacturers, which filed as an interested party in the case, called on the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and rule that energy producers and sellers cannot be held liable for climate change.
“This entire litigation is a misguided approach to addressing the very real challenges of climate change and a distraction from real solutions that will allow the world to source and use energy in ways that are affordable and sustainable,” Chief Legal Officer Linda Kelly said in a statement.
The lawsuit is based on Boulder officials wanting to force the companies to pay for the impacts of global warming, which includes recovery from increasingly severe weather that causes wildfires and droughts, and alters snowfall that mountain communities depend on for recreational tourism.
The oil companies’ lawyers argued 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 contended, it’s up to the federal government, through the Clean Air Act, to decide how to regulate emissions from oil and gas operators.
But lawyers representing Boulder and Boulder County argued that Colorado law allows 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.
The city of Boulder, along with Boulder and San Miguel counties, originally filed the climate-change lawsuit in Boulder District Court in 2018 against Suncor, which operates the state’s only petroleum refinery in Commerce City, and Exxon, one of the largest oil producers and refiners in the United States.
The lawsuit argued that the two oil companies were public nuisances, that their pollution was trespassing into the counties, and that their pollution violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act. The plaintiffs alleged that the petroleum companies also had participated in a conspiracy to deny that climate change is happening and to convince the public to keep using fossil fuels.
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Since 1983, average temperatures in Colorado have risen 2 degrees and are projected to rise another 2.5 to 5 degrees by 2050, according to documents filed in the case.
Similar cases filed against fossil fuels companies in New Jersey, New York and Maryland were dismissed, while one filed in Hawaii was allowed by that state’s supreme court to stand.
The U.S Supreme Court has declined to accept lawsuits filed by state and local governments. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which takes appeals cases from Colorado, said the issue belongs in state courts where the damages have occurred.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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