The Supreme Court begins its 2026-27 term Monday by considering whether Boulder, Colorado, can pursue climate-related damages against ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy in a case that could affect dozens of similar lawsuits against fossil fuel companies nationwide.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will open its new term Monday with a consequential dispute that could determine whether state and local governments can continue seeking billions of dollars from oil companies for alleged climate-related damages under state law.
The justices will hear arguments from ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy in their attempt to stop a lawsuit brought by Boulder County, the city of Boulder and San Miguel County, Colorado. The governments accuse the companies of contributing to climate change while allegedly misleading the public about risks associated with fossil fuels and are seeking compensation for past and future costs they attribute to a changing climate.
The case arrives at the Supreme Court after Colorado’s highest court allowed the litigation to proceed. Exxon and Suncor appealed, arguing that Boulder’s claims improperly intrude into an area governed by federal law and should therefore be dismissed.
The Trump administration has sided with the companies, maintaining that federal law prevents state and local governments from using state tort law to impose liability for global greenhouse gas emissions. The dispute will be argued on Oct. 5, the first Monday in October, when the Supreme Court traditionally begins its annual nine-month term, according to Reuters.
The potential impact stretches far beyond Colorado.
Exxon and Suncor have told the justices that nearly 60 state and local governments have brought comparable lawsuits against fossil fuel producers, many seeking substantial damages for alleged climate-related costs. Additional cases continue to be filed.
A ruling favoring the companies could provide grounds for dismissal of many of those cases and sharply restrict efforts by cities, counties and states to obtain climate-related damages through state courts.
Boulder’s governments contend Exxon and Suncor should bear financial responsibility for costs they say are connected to climate change, including infrastructure repairs, emergency response, environmental damage and public health effects.
Their lawsuit accuses the companies of promoting and selling fossil fuels while allegedly failing to adequately disclose or accurately represent their knowledge of climate risks.
Exxon and Suncor dispute those claims and argue that individual states cannot impose their own liability regimes over greenhouse gas emissions arising from fossil fuel production and consumption around the world.
Among their central arguments is that the Clean Air Act and broader principles of federal law govern interstate and international air pollution, leaving states without authority to use their own laws to regulate conduct with effects extending far beyond their borders.
Supporters of the oil companies argue that allowing Boulder’s broadest theories of liability to proceed could effectively permit individual states or municipalities to establish national environmental policy through damages lawsuits.
Boulder and its supporters counter that the case does not attempt to regulate emissions nationally. They characterize it as a conventional state-law action seeking compensation from companies for alleged deception and resulting local harm.
That distinction will be central to the justices’ consideration of the case.
The Supreme Court docket identifies the dispute as Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc., et al. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, et al. The court agreed to hear the case after years of procedural battles over whether climate lawsuits of this kind belong in state or federal court and whether federal environmental law blocks them altogether.
The fossil fuel industry has frequently sought Supreme Court intervention in climate litigation and disputes over federal environmental authority.
Over roughly the past two decades, energy companies, industry organizations and states aligned with them have secured a series of significant victories before the Supreme Court in cases limiting federal environmental regulatory authority or rejecting particular theories of climate liability.
The current case gives the justices another opportunity to determine how far governments may go in pursuing fossil fuel companies through the courts rather than through environmental statutes enacted by Congress.
The underlying scientific issue is not whether burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases. Combustion of coal, oil and natural gas releases carbon dioxide and other gases that accumulate in the atmosphere and affect the Earth’s heat balance.
The legal question instead concerns who may impose liability for alleged resulting harms and under what body of law.
Boulder argues that its state-law causes of action should be allowed to proceed against the companies. Exxon and Suncor maintain that because the alleged injuries arise from global emissions, those claims necessarily implicate federal interests and cannot be decided through individual state liability rules.
The Trump administration has backed that position.
The federal government told the court that allowing state-law claims based on worldwide emissions could interfere with national energy, environmental and foreign policy, areas in which the federal government traditionally plays the dominant role.
The litigation therefore places competing principles of federalism before the court: the traditional authority of states to enforce their own tort and consumer-protection laws versus the federal government’s authority over interstate pollution, energy policy and international matters.
The argument also opens a term expected to feature several major disputes over President Donald Trump’s policies and other politically divisive questions.
Among the cases already scheduled or accepted for consideration are challenges involving the Trump administration’s immigration policies and state restrictions on assault-style semiautomatic rifles.
The court currently has a 6-3 conservative majority, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett forming the conservative bloc and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson comprising its three-member liberal wing.
Monday’s climate case, however, will be heard by eight justices.
Alito has recused himself from participating.
The justice owns shares in several oil and gas companies, although his most recent financial disclosures do not show holdings in Exxon or Suncor. His recusal was disclosed in late September after questions arose over whether his investments in other energy companies involved in related climate litigation could create an appearance of a conflict.
Alito had also recused himself when an earlier stage of the Boulder litigation reached the Supreme Court in 2023.
The court did not provide a detailed explanation for his latest recusal, consistent with its usual practice regarding recusals.
Without Alito, an evenly divided 4-4 decision is possible. Such an outcome generally leaves the lower court ruling intact without establishing a nationwide Supreme Court precedent, although the precise procedural consequences would depend on how the case is resolved.
The stakes surrounding the litigation have grown as state and local governments increasingly use state consumer-protection, nuisance and other laws in efforts to recover climate-related costs.
Similar lawsuits have been filed around the country against Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell and other major fossil fuel producers. The claims vary by jurisdiction but generally contend that companies knew for decades about potential climate consequences associated with fossil fuel use while publicly minimizing or disputing those risks.
The energy industry has vigorously contested those accusations and has argued that climate policy should be established by elected lawmakers and federal regulators rather than through a patchwork of state-court damages awards.
The companies have also warned that the potential financial exposure could reach billions of dollars.
The Boulder case is particularly important because it could address not simply where those lawsuits should be heard but whether some of their core theories may proceed at all.
Earlier climate cases frequently became consumed by procedural disputes over whether litigation filed in state court could be transferred to federal court. As courts increasingly allowed cases to remain in state systems, energy companies shifted toward arguments that federal law preempts the claims themselves.
That broader issue now places the substance of climate liability directly before the Supreme Court.
The justices’ decision could determine whether local governments continue litigating claims individually under their respective state laws or whether the court establishes a federal barrier that blocks much of the emerging climate-litigation strategy.
Boulder maintains that it is seeking compensation for identifiable local costs rather than attempting to set national emissions standards.
Those alleged costs include damage to infrastructure and natural resources, expenditures for emergency management and adaptation and effects on public health that local officials attribute to climate conditions.
The oil companies argue that those alleged harms cannot be separated from the worldwide production and consumption of fossil fuels, meaning liability cannot fairly or constitutionally be assigned through the law of a single state.
The Trump administration agrees that the dispute has national implications and has received permission to participate in Monday’s oral argument as a friend of the court.
The case begins a Supreme Court term already under intense scrutiny following years of major rulings involving presidential power, abortion, administrative agencies, gun rights and other issues.
The court has increasingly limited the authority of federal regulators in major environmental cases, including decisions narrowing the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to impose certain nationwide rules without clear congressional authorization.
Monday’s argument will test a different approach to climate policy — attempts by state and local governments to impose financial liability through litigation rather than federal regulation.
The outcome could either preserve that avenue or substantially curtail it.
Arguments before the justices do not necessarily reveal how the court will ultimately rule, and a decision is not expected immediately.
The justices are expected to issue their ruling before the current Supreme Court term concludes at the end of June 2027.
Whatever the result, the Exxon-Suncor dispute could become one of the term’s most consequential decisions for the energy industry and for the growing network of state and local climate lawsuits seeking to transfer some of the financial costs attributed to climate change to fossil fuel companies.
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