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US Supreme Court Rejects Big Oil Attacks on Hawaii Climate Lawsuit
"With this latest denial, the fossil fuel industry's worst nightmare—having to face the overwhelming evidence of their decades of calculated climate deception—is closer than ever to becoming a reality," said one advocate.
Jan 13, 2025
Climate campaigners and scientists on Monday welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to reject attempts by fossil fuel giants to quash the Hawaii capital's lawsuit aiming to hold the major polluters accountable for the devastating impacts of their products.
"This is a significant day for the people of Honolulu and the rule of law," Ben Sullivan, executive director and chief resilience officer at the City and County of Honolulu's Office of Climate Change, Sustainability, and Resiliency, said in a statement.
"This landmark decision upholds our right to enforce Hawaii laws in Hawaii courts, ensuring the protection of Hawaii taxpayers and communities from the immense costs and consequences of the climate crisis caused by the defendants misconduct," he added.
Honolulu first sued companies including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Sunoco in March 2020. The companies have fought to shut down the case—like dozens of other climate liability lawsuits that states and municipalities have filed against Big Oil at the state level.
Shell and Sunoco led a pair of appeals to the Supreme Court, arguing that Honolulu's suit was "a blueprint for chaos" because it could inform other legal actions against fossil fuel companies and such cases "could threaten the energy industry." Similar to three previous decisions, the justices declined to intervene.
Center for Climate Integrity president Richard Wiles connected Monday's victory to the other cases, saying in a statement that "Big Oil companies keep fighting a losing battle to avoid standing trial for their climate lies."
"With this latest denial, the fossil fuel industry's worst nightmare—having to face the overwhelming evidence of their decades of calculated climate deception—is closer than ever to becoming a reality," Wiles continued. "Communities everywhere are paying dearly for the massive damages caused by Big Oil's decadeslong climate deception. The people of Honolulu and communities across the country deserve their day in court to hold these companies accountable."
Delta Merner, lead scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists' Science Hub for Climate Litigation, similarly celebrated the decision, which she called "a resounding affirmation of Honolulu's right to seek justice under state law for the mounting climate impacts caused by fossil fuel companies' deceptive practices."
"For more than 50 years, fossil fuel companies have conducted sophisticated disinformation campaigns to obscure their own research showing that burning fossil fuels would drive climate change," Merner highlighted. "This case lays bare how these actions have contributed to rising seas, intensified storms, and coastal erosion that are devastating Honolulu's people, infrastructure, and natural resources."
"Scientific evidence is unequivocal: The human-caused emissions from fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change," she stressed. "Honolulu's case stands as an example of how communities are using both science and the law to challenge corporate misconduct and demand accountability for climate damages."
Merner added that "the people of Honolulu are demonstrating remarkable leadership in standing up to powerful fossil fuel companies whose disinformation campaigns have directly contributed to the climate harms they now face. Their efforts serve as a powerful example for communities around the world. This decision is one step in a larger effort to seek accountability and justice."
The Supreme Court's latest blow to the oil and gas industry came just a week before the second inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who courted Big Oil executives on the campaign trail and pledged to "drill, baby, drill" if he won the November election.
The high court—which has a right-wing supermajority that includes three Trump appointees—had asked the Biden administration to weigh in. Last month, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar
urged the justices not to intervene. Merner said at the time that her briefs "represent an important step in the pursuit of climate accountability."
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On Biden's Failure to Protect Our Oceans
The hope and optimism for ocean protection at the beginning of the Biden administration has, in the end, turned to profound disappointment.
Dec 30, 2024
Among President Biden’s many laudable environmental accomplishments, one of his historic failures is that he declined to protect America’s ocean ecosystems. Despite the president’s professed goal to protect 30 percent of America’s oceans by 2030, he did virtually none of this. Perhaps he was planning on a second term (obviously a bad gamble), or perhaps he never really intended to do any of this.
Regardless, the hope and optimism for ocean protection at the beginning of the Biden administration has, in the end, turned to profound disappointment. On this issue, the administration prioritized local politics over science, need, and national interest.
At the start of his term, a group of marine scientists from across the nation submitted a joint Scientists’ Letter on Ocean Protection to President Biden, urging him to strongly protect 30% of America’s ocean ecosystems by 2030. The scientists’ ocean letter — signed by more than 90 university deans, department chairs, distinguished marine professors, agency and independent scientists (including legendary Dr. Jane Goodall) — told the president that America’s ocean ecosystems are in significant decline due to decades of over exploitation, climate change, acidification, and pollution.
History will not be kind to those government officials with the responsibility to address our ocean crisis, but stood by and did nothing.
Scientists warned the president that ocean ecosystems will have difficulty retaining functional integrity throughout the climate crisis this century, and that these ecosystems need the strongest protections the government can provide. As virtually all of America’s strongly protected federal waters to date are in the remote central Pacific, and none are on productive, intensively exploited continental shelves, the scientists urged President Biden to use executive authority under the Antiquities Act to establish Marine National Monuments in the Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, Gulf of Alaska, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Maine, Caribbean, and Pacific and Atlantic coasts. This isn’t rocket science, but simply adaptive, precautionary ecosystem management.
President Biden ignored the scientists’ plea.
Although he has so far designated seven cultural/historic monuments on land, Biden has still established no Marine National Monuments. While it is possible he may enact marine monuments in the final weeks of his term, indications are that this is unlikely.
Further, the Biden administration has designated only three small National Marine Sanctuaries: two in the Great Lakes and one small one off California. In early January, the administration is expected to announce, with great fanfare no doubt, its designation of a Marine Sanctuary overlaying the already strongly protected Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (northwestern Hawaiian Islands), Coral Reef Reserve, and National Wildlife Refuge. To be clear, this sanctuary designation will not protect any new ocean area, but will simply further insulate existing protections from future administrative and legal challenges (e.g. at the Supreme Court). While this additional layer of protection is appropriate, it does not substitute for the critical need to strongly protect other more threatened marine ecosystems. And on this, the Biden administration simply failed.
The U.S. presently has seventeen National Marine Sanctuaries, five of those in just one state (California); and five Marine National Monuments, four in the remote central Pacific, and one small one in the northwest Atlantic. But other productive, and troubled marine ecosystems on continental shelves continue to be ignored, largely due to politics.
Alaska for instance—with more shoreline, continental shelf, marine mammals, seabirds, and fish than the rest of the U.S. combined, and one of the most over-exploited and climate stressed marine ecosystems in the world ocean—still has no national marine sanctuary or marine national monument, due to federal timidity in face of industry and political opposition. The federal government has essentially ceded ownership of Alaska’s vast federal offshore waters—over twice the size of the land area of the state—to parochial politics in Alaska.
Astonishingly, the U.S. is the only Arctic coastal nation that still has no permanently protected Arctic Ocean waters. Russia, Canada, Norway, and Greenland all have established permanent Arctic marine protected areas. But while presenting itself as an international leader in Arctic and ocean conservation, the U.S. has only established temporary administrative restrictions in its Arctic waters (oil & gas withdrawals and commercial fishery closures) that will almost certainly be rescinded in the Trump II administration, as most were in Trump I.
To remedy this, a group of Arctic Indigenous Peoples, conservationists, and marine scientists in Alaska proposed to President Biden that he designate an Arctic Ocean Marine National Monument, to protect the U.S. Arctic Ocean now in severe decline due to global warming and sea ice loss.
The Arctic Ocean Monument would encompass all U.S. federal waters (3-200 miles offshore) from the Northern Bering Sea north along the U.S./Russia maritime boundary, and east to the U.S./Canada maritime boundary (approx. 219,000 square miles), and would also include the Extended Continental Shelf seabed claims recently made by the U.S. in international Arctic waters north of the 200-mile limit (approx. 200,000 square miles). The Monument would permanently prohibit offshore oil & gas development, commercial fishing, and seabed mining; protect subsistence; enhance science; and would establish a co-management relationship between the federal government and Arctic coastal Tribes to manage this vast offshore ecosystem. As the region is the now-submerged ancient homeland for all Indigenous Peoples in the western hemisphere—Beringia—it is an inarguable candidate for monument designation under the Antiquities Act.
President Biden could have helped save our oceans with the simple stroke of his pen, but he refused.
Even though President Biden stated that: “What I really want to do... is conserve significant amounts of Alaskan sea and land forever,” he ignored the Arctic Ocean monument proposal.
This decade is likely our last best chance to secure strong protections for America’s offshore ecosystems, but now as the Biden administration has failed to do so, and Trump II will do none of this, we may have lost that last best chance.
Whenever faced with industry push-back or political pressure to ocean conservation measures, every federal administration, Democratic or Republican, simply refuses to act. This is a recipe for a disastrous future for our oceans. History will not be kind to those government officials with the responsibility to address our ocean crisis, but stood by and did nothing.
President Biden could have helped save our oceans with the simple stroke of his pen, but he refused.
The blame for further industrial damage and decline in America’s ocean ecosystems in the Trump II presidency will be shared by President Biden, as he had the authority, science, public support, and national interest obligation to prevent such, yet did nothing—an historic betrayal of the public trust.
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Record 88 US Jurisdictions to Raise Minimum Wages in 2025 as Federal Pay Floor Remains Stagnant
"It's time for Congress to deliver for workers on the federal level," said one advocate.
Dec 24, 2024
While the federal minimum wage hasn't budged from a paltry $7.25 an hour since the last time it was raised in 2009, states and local governments are taking action to boost wages in the face of rising costs.
A record 88 jurisdictions will raise their minimum wage floors by the end of the coming year, according to a report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a nonprofit advocacy organization. The 88 jurisdictions include 23 states and 65 cities and counties—of those, 70 jurisdictions are enacting wages that will reach or exceed $15 an hour for some or all employees, and 53 jurisdictions will enact a wage floor that reaches or exceeds $17 an hour for all or some workers.
The states enacting increases on January 1, 2025 include Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, per NELP.
"Next year, Illinois's workers are getting another raise," Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced proudly on X. Workers will be getting a minimum wage increase of $1 per hour in Illinois in 2025, from $14 to $15.
"In the absence of progress at the federal level, workers and advocates are continuing to take action at the ballot box, statehouses, and in their city councils. Thanks to years-long worker-led campaigns, these victories will help workers keep up with the rising cost of living, especially Black and brown workers who are disproportionately affected by low wages and economic insecurity," said Rebecca Dixon, president and CEO of the NELP in a statement.
"Now it's time for Congress to deliver for workers on the federal level," she added.
Arkansas, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, and West Virginia, which all have minimum wage laws above the federal rate of $7.25, are not slated to raise their minimum wages in 2025. Currently there 20 states with a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, either because the state's minimum wage is $7.25 or below, or there is no state-mandated minimum wage, so the federal dollar amount applies, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The NELP report highlights particularly consequential wage increase victories. For example, voters in the GOP-controlled state of Alaska approved a ballot initiative that raised the minimum wage to $15 by 2027 and also enacted a paid sick leave policy, according to NELP.
"Alaska is one of seven states that do not currently allow employers to subsidize their payroll costs through the use of tip credits, making this victory especially consequential for tipped workers," according to the report.
In Arizona, voters defeated Proposition 138 by a wide margin. The ballot measure was restaurant industry-backed and "would have cut wages for tipped workers by expanding the 'tip credit' from a fixed $3.00 less than the full minimum wage to 25% less than the full minimum wage," according to NELP.
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