After more than a decade of Rockefeller-funded climate lawsuits that have generated plenty of headlines but little to show for them, the U.S. Supreme Court may finally decide whether to step in. At today’s conference, the justices are considering whether to grant review of a petition that could reshape the entire climate-lawfare landscape. 

The petition at issue challenges the Colorado Supreme Court decision allowing the City of Boulder and Boulder County’s climate lawsuit to proceed under state law. If the Court takes the case, it would confront a question that has driven years of sprawling litigation: can local governments use state tort law to set national climate policy, and impose what Boulder’s own lawyers have called an “indirect carbon tax”? 

How We Got Here 

Boulder filed its lawsuit in 2018, reframing global climate change as a state law nuisance and misrepresentation case, seeking damages for local impacts like wildfires and flooding and demanding that energy companies pay for future “climate adaptation” projects. 

From the start, the case has lacked broad support within Colorado. Gov. Jared Polis, Sen. Michael Bennet, and Sen. John Hickenlooper have all largely avoided backing it. The Denver Post editorial board opposed the suit when it was filed, and former Interior Secretary and Colorado AG Gale Norton have argued that a “patchwork of litigation” should not dictate national energy policy.” 

That skepticism did not stop the Colorado Supreme Court, which in May issued a 5-2 decision affirming the denial of the defendants’ motion to dismiss. In dissent, Justice Carlos Samour warned that Boulder’s claims merely “masquerade” as ordinary torts while actually targeting interstate and international emissions – matters reserved for the federal government. 

That ruling set the stage for the defendants’ August petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, which calls Boulder’s approach a “manifestly wrong” attempt to turn state courts into global climate regulators. 

Boulder Says It’s Just About “Local Harms,” While Their Own Lawyers Say Otherwise 

In its brief urging the Court not to intervene – filed only after the Court ordered a response – Boulder claims the case concerns only “quintessentially local harms.” But that claim is difficult to square with how the litigation has been described by the people who built it: 

• David Bookbinder, who represented Boulder and still remains on the plaintiffs’ email chains, bluntly described climate litigation as an “indirect carbon tax.” 

• In 2021, another outside attorney for Boulder said a core goal of the litigation is to “raise the price of the products” made by energy companies until consumers can no longer afford them. 

• Boulder City Council officials similarly promoted the case as a means for “systems-level change” in energy policy. 

In short, while Boulder tries to present its case as a narrow dispute about damages, its architects have repeatedly framed the lawsuit as a tool to drive national – and even global –  policy change through state courts. That disconnect is one of the key reasons the Supreme Court may decide to step in. 

A Broad Coalition Asking the Court to Step In 

The petition has also drawn one of the broadest coalitions yet seen in the climate litigation fight: 

• The U.S. Department of Justice and 26 state attorneys general filed amicus briefs warning that allowing Boulder’s lawsuit to stand would impose conflicting state-level rules on interstate commerce and effectively regulate national climate policy.

• More than 100 members of Congress also weighed in, stressing that national climate and energy policy should be set in Congress, not by county-level juries applying novel interpretations of state law. 

• Legal scholars Richard Epstein, John Yoo, and others argued in their own amicus brief that neither Boulder nor any other local government can unilaterally “decide climate and energy policy for the entire Nation” through state law litigation. 

It is hard to imagine a clearer signal of national importance. 

A Wave of Dismissals Show Everything Has Changed 

While some commentators like Pat Parenteau – who informally advises the dark money-funded law firm Sher Edling on climate cases – argue little has changed aside from a change in administration since the last time the Supreme Court reviewed the question, the reality is quite different.  

Since the Court denied the Honolulu petition in January, other cases brought by New Jersey, New York City, Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Bucks County, Charleston, and Puerto Rico municipalities have all been dismissed.  

These rulings sharply diverge from the Colorado ruling and highlight a growing divide among lower courts on fundamental constitutional questions around preemption and federalism. That fractured landscape is exactly the kind of conflict the Supreme Court often steps in to resolve. 

The Bottom Line 

When the justices meet on Friday, they will consider whether to allow Boulder to press ahead with a lawsuit its own lawyers openly tout as a tool for driving national climate policy. They’ll weigh a federal government now arguing that decision is unconstitutional, a string of lower-court rulings rejecting similar cases, and warnings from a broad coalition about the national and international consequences of letting Boulder’s case stand. 

The Court can decline review and allow more years of costly, headline-driven climate lawsuits – or it can grant cert and finally draw a line around how far cities and counties can go in trying to set national energy policy from local courthouses.  

Either way, Friday’s conference marks a pivotal moment. The outcome will signal whether the Supreme Court is ready to bring an end to a decade-long effort to achieve through litigation what activists have repeatedly failed to win in Congress.