Colorado Supreme Court hears arguments in Boulder's climate lawsuit against energy companies
The Colorado Supreme Court is considering whether a climate lawsuit against ExxonMobil and Suncor can move forward.
The City of Boulder and Boulder County are suing the two energy companies for millions of dollars in damage related to climate disasters.
"We feel like polluters that caused those damages should be responsible for baring the costs of those," said Boulder Mayor Aaron Brocket.
The lawsuit claims ExxonMobil and Suncor misled the public for decades about the impact of fossil fuels and are now liable for damages.
"I think there's a parallel there to the tobacco industry where for many years the tobacco industry knew the harms that their products were causing but continued to sell them anyway," said Brocket.
Attorneys for the energy companies say Big Tobacco and Big Oil aren't the same. While tobacco is a choice that impacts only smokers, they say, fossil fuels are a necessity and one of many things that impact climate change.
"Dealing with climate change not only has to be uniform across the country but it has to be something that we deal with internationally," said Phil Goldberg, Special Counsel to the Manufacturers Accountability Project.
He says state law doesn't govern global activity. Only the federal government, Goldberg says, can control interstate emissions and the Clean Air Act does that.
"You can't apply state law to this. It's not an appropriate vehicle for liability and state law at all. This is really federal and international interest," Goldberg said.
But attorneys for the city and county say they aren't trying to change or regulate the companies' activities, rather make them pay for climate related damages they helped cause.
"We're not asking for every penny to be paid for the future damages but for a share of it because they were very culpable," said Brocket.
Attorneys for Suncor and ExxonMobil say, by seeking millions of dollars in damages, Boulder is essentially seeking changes to the fossil fuel industry, and they say those changes are within the domain of the federal government only. They also insist the industry didn't mislead anyone. The causes of climate change, they say, have been widely understood for decades.
The Boulder lawsuit is one of at least a couple dozen similar lawsuits filed around the country. While courts in New York, New Jersey and Maryland have dismissed the cases, the Hawaii Supreme Court gave the green light to a Honolulu lawsuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the decision.
