Supreme Court Could Make Big Oil Even More Impervious to Climate Change Accountability
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Flag and yacht enthusiasts and their colleagues at the Supreme Court have a chance this week to elevate major oil producers to an even higher plane of impunity than they currently enjoy. The Justices will decide on Thursday whether to hear Sunoco v. Honolulu, an appeal for the Court to block a host of lawsuits from states and cities around the country over Big Oil’s decades of deception when it comes to climate change-causing emissions from their products.
The Court has previously allowed these claims to stay at the state level, away from the federal statutes including the Clean Air Act that Big Oil argues should preempt the state-level claims. The claims from the states and cities are modeled in part after tobacco lawsuits, and essentially argue that the companies sold harmful products for years without proper warnings. But these days, the conservative majority is, let’s say, feeling itself. If the court agrees to hear the case at all, it would more or less signal that a ruling in favor of the ExxonMobils and Chevrons out there is coming.