Oil companies including
The companies met lawyers for the city and county of Honolulu for a hearing in City and County of Honolulu vs. Sunoco, a climate deception case that could be the first of its kind to reach trial in state court.
The lawsuit is one of many similar cases the energy industry is fighting nationwide using state laws to hold companies accountable for alleged deception to consumers about their products’ influence on climate change.
Energy attorneys have been trying to argue that the cases are preempted by federal laws and don’t belong in state courts, but Honolulu’s case is getting closer to what could be a potentially landmark trial around oil and gas climate statements.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, counsel for Chevron, insisted that the case mirrors another lawsuit from New York, which was dismissed entirely by federal courts for raising issues of national and international emissions.
This case does the same, so it shouldn’t be heard and ultimately decided by individual states, Boutrous said.
“Here, plaintiffs want to apply Hawaii law to conduct in every jurisdiction in the United States and every jurisdiction around the planet,” Boutrous told justices.
According to precedent, “EPA is tasked by the Clean Air Act with striking the complex balance between protecting our environment, which of course is important, and grappling with climate change, but balancing that against our energy needs,” Boutrous continued.
Fraud Versus Emissions
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed New York’s case, but that hasn’t seemed to stop myriad other US appeals courts from allowing other cases to move forward, according to examination from Associate Justice Sabrina S. McKenna. Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald probed whether companies believed all state law claims like these are preempted under the Clean Air Act—which leaves room in the statute for states to bring their own emissions cases.
The Clean Air Act still preempts big emissions cases like these that involve multiple borders, Boutrous argued, leaving states leeway only to file “a much simpler claim than the one being advanced here.”
Vic Sher—of Sher Edling, arguing on behalf of Honolulu—countered that companies are trying hard to mischaracterize the claims, which center purely on state-level consequences for fraud and deception and not interstate emissions.
“Even if everything Mr. Boutros said is true, there is no conflict between telling the truth and warning about dangers—of which these companies were aware of for decades—and complying with whatever federal obligations on the pollution side are imposed by federal law,” Sher told justices.
Associate Justice Todd W. Eddins probed what kind of remedy the city and county will seek, if the case isn’t about actual emissions.
“Compensation in this case will not solve the climate change, but it will help this community survive it” by funding resilience efforts, according to Sher.
“This is a big case and it’s an important case, and those factors don’t make the case ... a federal case,” he said.
The case is City and County of Honolulu vs. Sunoco, Haw., No. SCAP-22-0000429, Oral arguments 8/17/23.
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