Litigation - Climate Extra

GOP AGs, Lawmakers Urge High Court To Toss Boulder Nuisance Case

More than two dozen GOP attorneys general (AGs) and over 100 Republican House members are urging the Supreme Court to dismiss Colorado municipalities’ climate nuisance and fraud case against the oil sector, signaling that the industry is mounting another high-profile campaign to persuade the justices to block multiple similar suits proceeding nationally. The Republican officials are laying out their arguments in amicus briefs in Suncor Energy (USA) Inc., et al. v. County Commissioners of Boulder, et al . There,...

Industry, Free Market Groups Craft Broad Target List For State Climate Laws

Industry and free market groups are detailing a broad assortment of state climate laws that they want the Trump administration to challenge in new legal actions, arguing the Justice Department (DOJ) must intervene to assert federal preemption over a host of measures affecting vehicle emissions, climate-related disclosures and cap-and-trade programs. In recent comments submitted to DOJ, the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (AmFree Chamber) writes that numerous state and local climate programs “pose substantial burdens on businesses across the...

Washington State Carbon Trading Program Survives High Court Challenge

Washington state’s relatively young greenhouse gas “cap-and-invest” program has survived another major threat to its continued implementation, after the Supreme Court declined to hear a power company’s appeal asserting that the program unconstitutionally burdens interstate commerce. The high court’s decision not to hear the appeal, issued in a brief Oct. 6 order , comes nearly a year after state voters in the November election rejected a ballot initiative that would have repealed the carbon trading program. The justices did not...

Maryland Justices Appear Skeptical Of Cities’ Climate Fraud Appeals

Maryland Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of city and county officials’ calls to overrule lower courts’ dismissals of their climate nuisance and fraud claims against oil majors and allow them to proceed in state courts, with several of the justices questioning plaintiffs’ claims that their cases are not attempting to reduce emissions. The court heard consolidated arguments Oct. 6 in Baltimore v. BP PLC, et al., Anne Arundel County v. BP, PLC, et al. , and City of Annapolis v....

Recipients Sue EPA Over $7 Billion Community Solar Grants Termination

Grant recipients under EPA’s $7 billion Solar For All program are suing over EPA’s termination of their awards, arguing the agency misinterpreted the GOP budget law’s rescission of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF) and failed to provide a reasoned explanation for its decision. However, recipients in this case could face procedural challenges, given prior Supreme Court decisions finding groups must file suits challenging other grant freezes in a federal claims court, which would limit the type of relief that...

EPA Urges D.C. Circuit To Reject GHGRF Grantees’ En Banc Request

EPA is urging the D.C. Circuit to reject grant recipients’ request for the full court to rehear a split panel decision that opened the door for EPA to pull back billions of already obligated Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF) dollars. In a Sept. 30 brief , EPA urges the court not to grant plaintiffs’ request for an en banc rehearing, renewing its argument that at its core, the litigation is a contract dispute that belongs in the Court of...

Gas Firms Say Court Ignores EPCA Precedent In Appeal Over L.A. Boiler Rule

Natural gas firms are urging the 9th Circuit to reverse a lower court ruling that upheld a zero-emission boiler rule in the Los Angeles region, arguing the district court ignored the appellate court’s 2024 ruling that Berkeley, CA’s ban on natural gas hookups to new homes and buildings was preempted by the Energy Policy & Conservation Act (EPCA). “This case presents essentially the same question of federal preemption this Court resolved last year” in California Restaurant Association (CRA) v. City...

Court Declines To Rehear Firm’s Nondelegation Challenge To HFC Law

The D.C. Circuit is denying a request from a manufacturer of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) to reconsider its claim that Congress illegally delegated authority to EPA in a 2020 law governing the climate-warming chemicals, scuttling chances that the court might reverse a prior panel ruling against the company. In a pair of orders issued Sept. 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected requests from RMS of Georgia, also known as Choice Refrigerants, to rehear a panel...

Court Eyes Next Steps In Fight Over EPA’s 2022 California Emissions Waiver

A federal appellate court is asking EPA and other parties to propose next steps in a long-pending suit over a 2022 EPA preemption waiver for certain California vehicle greenhouse gas standards, after the Supreme Court’s June rejection of the appellate court’s prior conclusion that liquid fuels groups lacked standing to challenge the waiver. The request by the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a Sept. 29 order in State of Ohio et al v. EPA...

EPA Urges Court To Preserve Oil And Gas Methane Compliance Delay

EPA is resisting environmentalists’ call for a court to immediately vacate the agency’s interim final rule delaying compliance requirements for oil and gas sector methane and other emissions, claiming it “lawfully invoked” a good-cause public comment exemption and that the groups have failed to justify their “extraordinary request.” EPA’s stance laid out in a Sept. 25 opposition motion filed in Environmental Defense Fund, et al. v. EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit...

DOJ Asks Court To Dismiss California’s Suit Over CRA Waiver Repeals

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking a court to dismiss a suit by a California-led state coalition that claims EPA and other federal officials wrongly used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to rescind waivers for several California vehicle pollution programs, asserting the suit is precluded in part because of a bar on judicial review in the CRA statute. “This lawsuit asks this Court to invalidate three federal statutes that received majority votes in both Houses of Congress, and that...

Industry Asks 9th Circuit To Halt California GHG Disclosure Laws Amid Appeal

Industry groups are seeking to convince the 9th Circuit to quickly block implementation of California’s corporate climate-disclosure laws while they appeal a lower court decision rejecting their preliminary injunction request -- with the plaintiffs bringing First Amendment arguments already eyeing Supreme Court appeal. “Plaintiffs now face imminent, irreparable harm, with compelled speech due on or before January 1, 2026, and unrecoverable compliance burdens being incurred already,” states a Sept. 15 motion for injunction pending appeal in Chamber of Commerce of...

Democrats Blast EPA’s ‘Unconstitutional’ GHGRF Grant Terminations

House and Senate Democrats in a new court filing argue the Trump EPA’s termination of major clean energy and climate mitigation grants is an unconstitutional “power grab,” aiming to boost grants recipients’ appeal of an D.C. Circuit panel decision rejecting their challenge to those terminations. EPA’s “brazen actions usurped power assigned to Congress by the Constitution,” reads a Sept. 17 amicus brief signed by 40 members from both chambers. The lawmakers say they are seeking “to protect Congress’s plenary...

Targeting Vermont, DOJ Renews Attacks On Climate ‘Superfund’ Laws

The Trump administration is renewing its Clean Air Act and constitutional challenges to state climate “superfund” laws, urging a federal court to quickly block Vermont’s first-in-the-nation law that requires large fossil fuel companies to pay for climate adaptation efforts. “Vermont is defying federal law, the Constitution, and binding precedent -- all so it can punish disfavored businesses for ill-defined harms, without regard to the real harm to our federal system and the nation’s energy needs,” the Department of Justice (DOJ)...

Oil Industry Says Supreme Court Signals Interest In Boulder Climate Case

The oil industry says the Supreme Court has signaled renewed interest in climate nuisance cases it previously allowed to proceed in state courts, citing the court’s request that Boulder, CO, officials respond to the industry’s latest push to overrule a state court decision allowing a case to proceed after Boulder waived its right to respond. If the high court agreed to hear the industry’s effort to halt the Colorado case and then ultimately sided with industry, that could upend a...

HFC Manufacturer Asks Full D.C. Circuit To Reconsider Nondelegation Claim

A hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) manufacturer is asking the full D.C. Circuit to rehear its claim that Congress illegally delegated legislative authority to EPA in the 2020 HFC control law, detailing what it sees as faults of a unanimous panel decision that found no constitutional violations in the law’s HFC phasedown program. RMS of Georgia, also known as Choice Refrigerants, writes in a Sept. 15 petition that the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act “instructs an agency to dictate who may continue...

DOI Asks District Court To Remand Biden Maryland Wind Project Approval

The Trump administration is urging a district court to vacate an offshore wind project approval so that the Interior Department (DOI) can reconsider it, representing the latest tactic by the administration to block an ongoing offshore wind projects. The Trump administration says in a Sept. 12 motion that it now disagrees with how the Biden administration weighed certain statutory factors leading to approval of the construction and operation plan (COP) for the Maryland Offshore Wind Project from U.S. Wind. The...

DOJ Urges Justices To Block Climate Suits, Citing Constitution, Air Law

The Trump administration is urging the Supreme Court in a new filing to block state and local governments’ suits against the oil industry over climate damages, reiterating arguments that such suits are barred by the Constitution and EPA’s regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act. The Constitution limits states’ sovereign authority to their respective borders, the Justice Department (DOJ) writes in a Sept. 11 amicus brief in Suncor Energy, et al. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, et al...

8th Circuit Continues Pause Over SEC Climate Disclosure Rule Lawsuit

An appellate court is continuing to pause litigation over the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) climate-related disclosure rule, concluding the agency must conduct a notice-and-comment rulemaking to rescind the Biden-era rule or resume its legal defense of the measure. “It is the agency’s responsibility to determine whether its final rules will be rescinded, repealed, modified, or defended in litigation,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit writes in a Sept. 12 order in State of Iowa, et al....

GHGRF Grantees Stress Broad Effects In Push For Full D.C. Circuit Review

Recipients of $20 billion in grants under EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF) are urging the full D.C. Circuit to review a panel decision that blocked an earlier order to restore their access to the funds, warning that failing to do so would have catastrophic consequences for them as well as others that rely on federal funds. “In effectively depriving plaintiffs of a judicial forum to stop EPA’s unlawful conduct, the decision will undermine the rule of law and erode...

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