SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
elizabeth prelogar
US Supreme Court Seeks Biden Admin Opinion on Climate Suits Against Big Oil
Republican attorneys general are engaged in what one critic called "an obvious attempt to shield fossil fuel companies from facing accountability for their climate lies."
Oct 08, 2024
In yet another recent display of what's at stake in this year's U.S. presidential race, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday requested that the Biden administration weigh in on a case intended to thwart climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies.
The justices invited U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar—an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden who represents the federal government in court—to file a brief "expressing the views of the United States" regarding Alabama v. California.
In May, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and 18 of his Republican colleagues launched their bid to block lawsuits that several Democrat-led states including California have brought against energy giants for deceiving the public while fueling the global climate emergency. Multiple U.S. municipalities have filed similar suits against Big Oil.
Although justices have rejected the oil and gas industry's efforts to shift those suits from state to federal court, six of them are right-wingers with a record of anti-environment rulings. A spokesperson for Marshall toldReuters that the new request of Prelogar is "an encouraging sign that the justices are taking seriously the complaint of 19 states."
"Communities deserve their day in court to hold Big Oil accountable."
Meanwhile, Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), took aim at the Alabama-led case, saying in a statement that "this meritless, politically driven request is an obvious attempt to shield fossil fuel companies from facing accountability for their climate lies and the monumental damage they're causing."
"It should be a no-brainer for the solicitor general to oppose this petition and for the Supreme Court to reject it," he added. "Communities deserve their day in court to hold Big Oil accountable."
Wiles responded similarly in June, when the Supreme Court asked Prelogar to weigh in on a case brought by the City and County of Honolulu.
Alyssa Johl, CCI's vice president of legal and general counsel, said at the time that "lawsuits like Honolulu's are not seeking to solve climate change or regulate emissions—these plaintiffs simply want Big Oil to stop lying and pay their fair share of the damages they knowingly caused. The solicitor general should make clear that federal laws do not preempt the ability of communities to hold companies accountable for their deceptive claims under state law."
Reuters pointed out Monday that Prelogar has not yet filed a brief in that case, but has some history with these suits:
The Democratic-led states have noted that the Supreme Court has previously rejected bids by oil companies to move several such lawsuits to federal court, after numerous U.S. appeals courts said the claims are not preempted by federal law.
Prelogar had weighed in on that issue as well and had successfully urged the justices to reject the oil companies' appeals.
Although it's not yet clear where the Biden administration will come down on either of these cases—and the U.S. Department of Justice has infamously fought a climate suit that youth plaintiffs filed against the federal government—the high court's move comes less than a month away from a presidential election in which the fossil fuel-driven global emergency is a divisive issue.
The Republican nominee, former Republican President Donald Trump, has pledged to roll back the Biden administration's insufficient yet historic progress on climate policy if the fossil fuel industry pours $1 billion into his campaign.
His Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, is facing some criticism for watering down her previous climate policies but also had broad support from green groups, including some that had declined to endorse Biden before he dropped out and endorsed her in July.
Some climate campaigners and survivors of extreme weather events hope that Harris' election in November will lead to the Department of Justice launching a criminal case against fossil fuel companies, as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called for in May after conducting a three-year congressional investigation.
Harris is "the perfect person to prosecute the case against Big Oil," Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn wrote in a Common Dreams opinion piece this summer. As California's attorney general, she "went after ConocoPhillips (the company behind the Willow Project in Alaska) for air quality violations at their gas stations and prosecuted a pipeline company for a 2015 spill in Santa Barbara. Before that, as San Francisco district attorney, she set up the city's first environmental justice division."
While many names have been floated as Harris' potential pick for attorney general, some climate advocates have recently urged her to pick Raskin to lead the Department of Justice. As progressive organizer Aaron Regunberg wrote for The New Republic in August, "Who better to ensure the DOJ stops bowing to fossil fuel industry pressure than the head of the House Oversight Committee's push to hold Big Oil accountable?"
Regardless of which cases are filed and how far they go, concerns remain about conflicts of interests in the courts, particularly at the highest level of the federal judiciary.
Justice Samuel Alito "has recused himself from Honolulu and other climate accountability cases—likely because of his investments in oil companies," CCI highlighted on social media Monday. "But today he did not recuse himself from the request from 19 Republican AGs to block lawsuits against Big Oil."
"Justice Amy Coney Barrett has also faced calls to recuse herself from cases against Big Oil because her father was a top attorney for Shell for 29 years," the group added. "But she has not."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Supreme Court Rules 5-4 Against Texas in Razor Wire Border Battle
"The fact that four votes went in Texas' favor is a worrying sign," said one advocate.
Jan 22, 2024
Immigrant rights advocates and legal experts on Monday applauded as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas officials cannot impede federal border agents from cutting down razor wire that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott installed near the Rio Grande to stop migrants and asylum-seekers from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border—but expressed shock that four justices opposed the decision.
The high court voted 5-4 in favor of the Biden administration, which had previously been ordered by a federal appeals court last month to stop removing razor wire.
Right-wing Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito dissented, while Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court's three liberals in voting to allow border agents to cut down the wire.
Texas argued last month that under the Biden administration's orders, border agents had damaged state property and illegally trespassed when they cut through the concertina wire in order to reach migrants who had crossed onto U.S. soil and take them into custody for processing.
The U.S. Justice Department filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to reverse the federal appeals court's ruling.
In the Biden administration's filing, officials noted that three migrants—a woman and two children—drowned just over a week ago while trying to cross the Rio Grande.
The drownings, wrote U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, "underscore that Texas is firm in its continued efforts to exercise complete control of the border and land... and to block Border Patrol’s access to the border even in emergency circumstances."
"It is impossible to say what might have happened if Border Patrol had had its former access to the area—including through its surveillance trucks that assisted in monitoring the area," wrote Prelogar. "At the very least, however, Border Patrol would have had the opportunity to take any available steps to fulfill its responsibilities and assist its counterparts in the Mexican government with undertaking the rescue mission. Texas made that impossible."
The administration said the appeals court's ruling turned the U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause "on its head." The clause states that federal laws take precedence over statutes put in place by state governments.
"If that injunction is left in place," Prelogar said, "it will impede Border Patrol agents from carrying out their responsibilities to enforce the immigration laws and guard against the risk of injury and death, matters for which the federal government, not Texas, is held politically accountable."
Journalist Peter Sterne was among those who expressed concern over the four conservative justices' apparent disagreement with the supremacy clause.
"Whatever one thinks of current immigration policy, it ought not to be that controversial that states cannot prevent the federal government from enforcing federal law—lest we set the stage for Democratic-led states to similarly attempt to frustrate the enforcement of federal policies by Republican presidents," said University of Texas School of Law professor and CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck. "That four justices would still have left the lower court injunction in place will be taken, rightly or wrongly, as a sign that some of those long-standing principles of constitutional federalism might be in a degree of flux."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director of the American Immigration Council, said that considering well-established constitutional law, it was "not a surprise that the Supreme Court ruled in the Biden administration's favor here.
"That said," he added, "the fact that four votes went in Texas' favor is a worrying sign."
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Supreme Court Puts Chevron Doctrine 'Squarely In the Crosshairs'
One legal expert said that overturning the nearly 40-year precedent "would lead to far more judicial power grabs."
May 01, 2023
The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a challenge to a nearly 40-year administrative law precedent under which judges defer to federal agencies' interpretation of ambiguous statutes—a case that legal experts warn could result in judicial power grabs and the gutting of environmental and other regulations.
The Supreme Court said it will take up Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a case in which fishing companies are seeking to strike down the Chevron doctrine, named after the landmark 1984 Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council ruling that conservatives have long sought to overturn. The case is one of the most cited precedents in administrative law.
The Chevron doctrine involves a two-step process in which a court first determines whether Congress expressed its intent in legislation, and if so, whether or not that intent is ambiguous.
"In a sense, the outcome of this case is foreordained. It's part of a continuing agenda."
James Goodwin, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform, told Politico that Loper v. Raimondo has "the potential of being one of the most destabilizing decisions that this court has issued."
President Joe Biden's "environmental and energy agencies were already facing a heavily tilted playing field in the federal judiciary," Goodwin added. "I think eliminating Chevron... would make the prospects of surviving judicial review all the more daunting."
\u201cSCOTUS just put the Chevron doctrine squarely in the crosshairs \n\nhttps://t.co/DwFt8LGctj\n\nhttps://t.co/DyFBlZR1EB\u201d— Mike Sacks (@Mike Sacks) 1682948303
At issue in Loper v. Raimondo is whether the federal government can force herring fishers to fund a National Marine Fisheries Service program used to monitor their work. Two fishing companies argue that while the Magnuson-Stevens Act requires owners of fishing vessels to accommodate federal monitors onboard, the proprietors are not required "to pay the salaries of government-mandated monitors who take up valuable space on their vessels and oversee their operations."
The Biden administration's argument in favor of the Chevron doctrine leans heavily upon precedent.
"Federal courts have invoked Chevron in thousands of reported decisions, and Congress has repeatedly legislated against its backdrop," a brief filed by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and other officials in support of the doctrine notes. The brief adds that the Chevron doctrine "promotes political accountability, national uniformity, and predictability, and it respects the expertise agencies can bring to bear in administering complex statutory schemes."
\u201cChevron deference is the doctrine that judges should defer to the executive branch when the executive is interpreting ambiguous language in a law. It is rooted in principles of separation of powers and judicial modesty.\n\nIts death would lead to FAR more judicial power grabs.\u201d— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@Aaron Reichlin-Melnick) 1682950259
In 2020, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in Howard v. United States that "Chevronis in serious tension with the Constitution," while Justice Neil Gorsuch opined last year in Buffington v. McDonough that the doctrine "deserves a tombstone no one can miss."
"Overruling the Chevron doctrine, and undermining agencies and regulatory authority more broadly, has long been a hobbyhorse of Neil Gorsuch and other conservatives," legal journalist Christian Farias tweeted. "In a sense, the outcome of this case is foreordained. It's part of a continuing agenda."
\u201cLast year, SCOTUS had several chances to overturn Chevron. It stopped short of the brink -- perhaps because the majority had other projects on its mind.\n\n2022 was for abortion & guns.\n2023 likely will be for affirmative action.\n2024 may be for weakening the administrative state.\u201d— James Romoser (@James Romoser) 1682951853
Liberal Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson has recused herself from Loper v. Raimondo, explaining that she sat on the circuit court that initially heard the case.
"I still want to know how Ketanji Brown Jackson feels about all of this," Farias wrote. "Her insights are valuable: She was the vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an agency that is given Chevron-like deference in some contexts. Making her sit this one out won't help."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular