The US supreme court denied a plea from big oil to move the venue of a 2020 climate lawsuit filed by the state of Minnesota.
The decision, issued on Monday morning, puts the state one important step closer to putting the fossil fuel industry on trial for allegedly covering up the dangers of burning coal, oil and gas.
Minnesota in 2020 sued the US’s top oil lobbying firm the American Petroleum Institute, major oil and gas producer ExxonMobil and Koch Industries, which is tied to the fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch. The case alleges that the companies engaged in a decades-long campaign to deceive the public about climate change and attempts to force the companies to pay for the effects of the climate crisis on Minnesotans.
The defendants have long argued that the case should be heard in federal court rather than the state court where it was originally filed. But on Monday, the high court denied their appeal.
The order marks the third time since spring 2023 that the supreme court has turned down petitions from the fossil fuel industry to review jurisdiction in lawsuits focused on climate deception. In April, the high court turned down five appeal requests by oil majors, and the following month, it issued a similar decision on appeal requests in lawsuits filed by Hoboken, New Jersey and Delaware.
“Big oil companies will continue fighting to escape justice, but for the third time in a year, the US supreme court has denied their desperate pleas to overturn the unanimous rulings of every single court to consider this issue,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, a non-profit organization that tracks and supports climate litigation.
TThe fossil fuel industry argues that state court is an inappropriate venue to hear the lawsuit because climate change is an issue that should be left to federal lawmakers. However, there is no federal common regulation for greenhouse gas pollution.
But supporters of the suit note that the Minnesota case was brought under state consumer protection law, and argue that such jurisdictional battles mark an attempt to kill the cases before they can be heard in court.
“After three strikes, it’s time for these polluters to give up their failed arguments to escape state courts and prepare to face the evidence of their climate deception at trial,” said Wiles.
Minnesota’s climate deception lawsuit is one of more than two dozen filed by states, municipalities and the District of Columbia since 2017.
In December, Native tribes in Washington state filed a similar suit against ExxonMobil, Shell and other oil interests, becoming the first Indigenous plaintiffs in the US to do so. That same month, San Juan, Puerto Rico, filed a similar suit against major fossil fuel companies alleging they violated racketeering protections.
In September, California joined the climate deception legal battle, filing a lawsuit against some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies. Multnomah county, Oregon, also filed a similar suit in June, claiming the fossil fuel industry should be held responsible for fueling a deadly heat dome that struck the region two years earlier.
