States want to make Big Oil pay for climate harm. Now, courts are weighing in.

Federal judges have twice ruled against New York's climate superfund law, which sought $75 billion from fossil fuel companies for climate-related damages, finding it preempted by the Clean Air Act. Judge Brenda Sannes wrote the measure was ‘simply beyond the limits of state law,’ siding with the companies and 22 Republican attorneys general who sued.

Vermont, the only other state with such a law, faces a similar challenge, while lawmakers in Hawaiʻi, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and elsewhere say the rulings don't dampen their plans to push forward.

The bigger threat looms in the Supreme Court's Suncor v. Boulder County case, beginning next week, which could determine whether federal law preempts all state climate-liability lawsuits, including consumer rights, racketeering and antitrust claims tied to climate costs.

One law professor warned that a broad ruling against Boulder County could leave states with, in his words, billions of dollars in climate damages piling up with no legal recourse.

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