Boulder’s climate lawsuit was brought by a Rockefeller-funded national law firm and has attracted support from governments thousands of miles away. On Monday, as the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case, a more revealing question will be which Colorado elected officials are willing to stand behind it publicly?
The Supreme Court arguments give the lawsuit’s promoters their biggest stage yet, and Colorado’s political leaders an opportunity to explain where they stand. A rally and press conference scheduled for Monday morning at Boulder’s historic courthouse lists a “who’s who” of Rockefeller-sponsored groups, including the Colorado “Make Polluters Pay” Coalition.
Activist turnout is entirely predictable, but the more consequential question is whether the day’s events attract any Colorado leaders beyond the officials already invested in bringing the case.
On Sunday, one day before oral arguments, Gov. Jared Polis declined to weigh in on the case in an interview with the New York Times. Will Attorney General Phil Weiser go further? Weiser has defended Boulder’s ability to bring the case, but has stopped short of endorsing Boulder’s plan to bankrupt energy companies.
Meanwhile, Gale Norton – the former Colorado Attorney General and U.S. Interior Secretary – published a column in the Denver Post criticizing the lawsuit and warning about the consequences of resolving national energy policy through state-by-state damages claims:
“Damages litigation works differently. It looks backward, fixes responsibility on a historical record, and produces a judgment that cannot adapt as circumstances change. Multiply that process across dozens of state court systems, applying different state laws to the same global phenomenon, and the result is not a national policy but a patchwork of potentially conflicting judgments that limit lawmakers’ and companies’ ability to adapt.”
For a campaign that has struggled to demonstrate broad institutional support within Colorado, the answers will matter.
Minimal Support in Colorado
As EID Climate has previously documented, neither Senators Michael Bennet nor John Hickenlooper signed the 90-member Democratic congressional amicus brief supporting Boulder. Four members of Colorado’s House delegation participated, making the intraparty division all the more pronounced.
The local government picture is even more striking. The separate brief supporting Boulder drew signatures from jurisdictions in California, Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey.
No additional Colorado city or county joined that filing.
Meanwhile, eight Colorado counties – Archuleta, Delta, Garfield, Grand, Mesa, Montezuma, Montrose and Rio Blanco – joined the Associated Governments of Northwest Colorado in a brief supporting the energy companies. The best Boulder’s allies could find in response was a brief from seven Colorado ranchers in a state with more than 12,000 ranch operations.
As former Colorado congressman Bob Beauprez, who raises bison in Jackson County, noted in a Washington Examiner op-ed, the seven ranchers are hardly typical. One sits on the board of Conservation Colorado, one ran for office as a Democrat, and another was a state legislator and lobbyist, and their brief was written by a New York impact-litigation firm, not a Colorado one.
The county brief, meanwhile, warns that litigation threatening energy production and investment could undermine the revenues supporting roads, schools and emergency services. Montezuma County, for example, has historically received between 40 and 50 percent of its county tax revenue from oil and gas production, according to the filing.
Any candidates embracing Boulder’s lawsuit should explain how those communities’ concerns factor into that decision.
Will Rutinel Show?
Manny Rutinel, the Democratic nominee in the 8th Congressional District, which is home to the Suncor’s Commerce City refinery, a defendant in Boulder’s climate lawsuit, has a long record on this issue. As a Yale Law student, he was arrested at a 2019 energy divestment protest. In a 2020 interview, he said courts should make companies “pay their reparations to those who have been affected,” and he urged law students to help local governments fight those companies.
Rutinel has also shifted his position on oil and gas over the course of the campaign. Last summer, Rutinel backed a total fracking ban, a policy that would eliminate thousands of Colorado energy jobs, including in Weld County which he now seeks to represent. Now, he says he supports an “all of the above” energy approach.
Bottom Line: Boulder’s supporters have had years to build their coalition. Monday will offer a public view of how far that coalition reaches at home, and whether Colorado’s leading elected officials are prepared to put their own names behind it.
