{"id":20063,"date":"2024-06-17T09:47:12","date_gmt":"2024-06-17T09:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/17\/supreme-court-signals-interest-in-hearing-a-major-climate-change-case-that-could-be-a-nightmare-for-liberals\/"},"modified":"2024-06-17T09:47:12","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T09:47:12","slug":"supreme-court-signals-interest-in-hearing-a-major-climate-change-case-that-could-be-a-nightmare-for-liberals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/17\/supreme-court-signals-interest-in-hearing-a-major-climate-change-case-that-could-be-a-nightmare-for-liberals\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court signals interest in hearing a major climate change case that could be a \u2018nightmare\u2019 for liberals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Supreme Court seemed to signal interest this week in taking up a challenge launched by Hawaii against big oil companies to hold them liable for climate change, and some Democrats are suggesting the high court is \u2018captured\u2019 for the fossil fuel industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Justice Department to weigh in on a petition to hear a lawsuit brought by the City of Honolulu against major fuel companies including Sunoco, Exxon and Chevron, claiming the companies\u2019 products cause greenhouse gas emissions and global warming without warning consumers about the risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city employed a series of state laws like public nuisance and trespass measures and said the companies should pay billions to the state to abate the effects of climate change like weather events, sea level rise, heat waves, flooding and global warming generally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The high court gave DOJ no deadline for the solicitor general\u2019s input, but its request indicates a high likelihood the court wants to hear the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The energy companies first appealed to the\u00a0Hawaii Supreme Court,\u00a0arguing federal law prevents individual states from effectively shaping energy policies for all states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that court disagreed and ruled that the case should advance to trial. One justice said \u2018the Aloha Spirit inspires constitutional interpretation.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018It is important for the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review. The Hawaii Supreme Court\u2019s decision flatly contradicts U.S. Supreme Court precedent and federal circuit court decisions, including the Second Circuit which held in dismissing New York City\u2019s similar lawsuit, \u2018such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law,\u2019\u2019\u00a0Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr. of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, lawyer for the Chevron Corporation told Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018These meritless state and local lawsuits violate the federal constitution and interfere with federal energy policy,\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But some Democrats and liberal advocates have begun preemptively criticizing the court. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, posted on X saying, \u2018[t]his captured Court\u2019s delays of and interference in fossil fuel emissions regulations have already saved the polluters hundreds of billions \u2014 way more than they spent to capture it. But there is no end to fossil fuel polluters\u2019 greed and entitlement.\u2019<\/p>\n

Lisa Graves, the executive director at the left-wing watchdog group True North Research, told the Rolling Stone that fossil fuel companies\u2019 \u2018efforts to evade legal accountability are being aided by\u2026 the very same groups that helped the majority of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court get their seats on the bench.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, and affiliated lawyers and groups have discussed the case in seminars and journal articles advocating that the Court take up the case. The Federalist Society has made recommendations to Republican administrations for justices and judges across the country.<\/p>\n

But Fox News Digital has previously reported that the Hawaii litigation has been pushed by liberal dark money groups and legal partners.<\/p>\n

Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald, in his opinion rejecting the energy companies\u2019 arguments, wrote, \u2018Defendants knew of the dangers of using their fossil fuel products, \u2018knowingly concealed and misrepresented the climate impacts of their fossil fuel products,\u2019 and engaged in \u2018sophisticated disinformation campaigns to cast doubt on the science, causes, and effects of global warming,\u2019 causing increased fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, which then caused property and infrastructure damage in Honolulu.\u2019<\/p>\n

Last year, Fox News Digital reported last year that Recktenwald quietly disclosed in May that he presented for a course in collaboration with a little-known judicial advocacy organization funded by left-wing nonprofits, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI). According to the ELI, the Climate Judiciary Project is designed to educate judges across the country on how to handle\u00a0climate change litigation\u00a0that comes before them.<\/p>\n

\u2018As the body of climate litigation grows, judges must consider complex scientific and legal questions, many of which are developing rapidly,\u2019 CJP states on its website. \u2018To address these issues, the Climate Judiciary Project of the Environmental Law Institute is collaborating with leading national judicial education institutions to meet judges\u2019 need for basic familiarity with climate science methods and concepts.\u2019<\/p>\n

Sher Edling, LLP, the firm helping represent Hawaii at the Supreme Court works on dozens of climate-nuisance cases, representing cities and states across the country. The Daily Caller reported that the firm accepted $2.5 million\u00a0in 2022 from The New Venture fund, an fund of the liberal dark-money firm, Arabella Advisors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to sharing funding sources, Sher Edling, LLP and ELI have shared personnel. In February, Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas revealed that former Biden administration official Ann Carlson consulted for Sher Edling on climate litigation while serving on ELI\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

\u2018We have been raising awareness about the dangers of public nuisance litigation for well over a year,\u2019 O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, told Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018These cases represent a coordinated, dark-money-fueled threat to everyday consumers. The cases, commentators, law firms, and state court judges are all funded, supported, and trained by left-wing dark money.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018And these cases find support in the halls of congress from hypocrites like Sheldon Whitehouse, who bemoan dark money while filing legal briefs supporting liberal dark-money-backed public nuisance cases. Whitehouse\u2019s true goal, and that of most nuisance suits, is to remove products and services from the market that do not align with the progressive agenda,\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Left-wing dark money groups such as the Climate Judiciary Project are indoctrinating judges all across the country with their far-left climate change propaganda,\u2019 Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network told Fox News Digital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018The possibility that the Supreme Court would hear this case is a nightmare for these groups, because this Court cares about constitutional tenets like federalism rather than left-wing policy goals,\u2019 she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court could decide to take up the case, Sunoco v. Honolulu, as early as this summer.<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital reached out to Senator Whitehouse, the Environmental Law Institute and Sher Edling for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court seemed to signal interest this week in taking up a challenge launched by Hawaii against big oil companies to hold them liable for climate change, and some Democrats are suggesting the high court is \u2018captured\u2019 for the fossil fuel industry.\u00a0 The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Justice Department to weigh in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":20064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}