maryland supreme court dismisses democratic lawsuits against oil companies over climate change
The Supreme Court of Maryland's decision, written by Justice Brynja Booth, determined that the lawsuits brought by the City of Baltimore, Anne Arundel County, and the City of Annapolis improperly sought to use state law to "regulate air emissions beyond their jurisdictional boundaries." The cities had argued that the defendants, more than two dozen oil companies, including BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil, violated nuisance laws by selling products that generated carbon emissions and, in turn, led to costly weather events harming their residents.
Justice Booth wrote that federal law alone applies to cases related to interstate pollution. "No amount of creative pleading can masquerade the fact that the local governments are attempting to utilize state law to regulate global conduct that is purportedly causing global harm," Booth wrote. The ruling hands a decisive victory to oil and gas companies, which argued that such litigation could dismantle the industry by forcing it to pay tens of billions of dollars in damages.
The Trump administration, which filed a brief last year asking the court to dismiss the cases, also welcomed the decision. "[Federal law] contemplates no role for states reaching out and applying their law in other states," the brief stated. Theodore Boutrous Jr., an attorney who represented Chevron in the cases, said in a statement, "As the Court concluded, '[a]lowing each of the 50 states' 'to impose their own preferred policy solutions for climate change' 'would create a plainly irrational system of regulation.' Claims for climate-related damages under state laws are precluded by clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent."
The three lawsuits, which were filed between 2018 and 2021, are part of a broader coordinated effort from dozens of Democratic-led cities and states, which have filed identical lawsuits against many of the same oil and gas companies in local courts across the country. More than a quarter of the American population lives in a jurisdiction that is pursuing similar litigation. States including California, Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, and New Jersey, and cities including Chicago, Honolulu, San Francisco, and New York have each filed such lawsuits, some of which, like Honolulu's, are farther along and marching toward a potential trial.
The Supreme Court is slated to hear another, filed by the City of Boulder, Colo., in the coming months. The majority of cities and states involved in the effort, including the City of Baltimore, employ the same outside law firm, the San Francisco-based Sher Edling, which is funded by left-wing environmental nonprofits. Sara Gross, Baltimore City Department of Law's chief of the affirmative litigation division, said in a statement, "We agree with Justice Killough's dissent when he states clearly and plainly that, 'The Majority's conclusion that these cases are tantamount to emissions regulation is not a finding, it is a prediction about what discovery would show, dressed up as a legal conclusion and deployed to close the courthouse door before discovery could confirm or refute it."
Annapolis did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Anne Arundel declined to comment. The decision is likely to have significant implications for the ongoing legal efforts to hold oil and gas companies accountable for climate change, and may impact the ability of cities and states to pursue similar litigation in the future.