The surprising allies backing Boulder’s climate case before the Supreme Court

Boulder, Colorado sued Suncor and Exxon Mobil in 2018 over the rising costs of adapting to heat, wildfire and flood damage, and the case now sits before the Supreme Court, which hears oral arguments Monday. The immediate question isn't whether oil companies owe damages but whether the Court can intervene before the case even goes to trial in state court; oil companies argue the suit is really a backdoor attempt to regulate emissions and that federal law shields them from state liability.

Colorado ranchers, including Deirdre Macnab, are pushing back after watching their own county spend taxpayer money backing the oil companies, citing fire losses and drought costs that are pushing some ranchers toward bankruptcy. Conservative legal scholars including Jonathan Adler and former Republican EPA administrators Christine Todd Whitman and William Reilly have also sided with Boulder, arguing nothing in federal law or the Constitution blocks the suit from proceeding.

Justice Samuel Alito's recusal, given his oil company holdings, complicates the industry's path to a five-justice majority. A watchdog organization found 25 of the 38 briefs supporting Exxon and Suncor came from groups with financial ties to fossil fuel interests or foundations opposed to climate regulation.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.