Oil and gas companies are asking the Supreme Court to block dozens of high-powered lawsuits from California to Massachusetts seeking to hold the industry liable for billions of dollars in costs related to climate change. They are urging the justices to intervene now and rule that climate change is a global phenomenon and a matter for federal law, not one suited to state-by-state claims. 'The stakes could not be higher,' companies said in an appeal that comes before the court on Thursday.
This week, however, the industry's lawyers are asking the justices to decide the underlying question that affects all of them: Does federal law and the Clean Air Act override or preempt states and their courts from punishing the oil industry for the harm caused by greenhouse gases? 'This is the end game for the oil companies,' said Pat Parenteau, an environmental law expert at the Vermont Law School. 'They want to get this in front of the conservative Supreme Court.