In a motion filed Wednesday with the high court, 19 Republican state attorneys general argued that the climate liability challenges — which seek to hold the oil industry financially accountable for climate impacts — threaten “our basic way of life.”

The filing pits Alabama and other red states against five Democratic-led states that have sued oil companies to pay up for rising tides, intensifying storms and other disasters worsened by climate change. The approach tees up a battle royale between states — a type of legal fight that can only be decided by the Supreme Court.

Excerpts from the Bill of Complaint

2. In essence, Defendant States want a global carbon tax on the traditional energy industry. Citing fears of a climate catastrophe, they seek massive penalties, disgorgement, and injunctive relief against energy producers based on out-of-state conduct with out-of-state effects. On their view, a small gas station in rural Alabama could owe damages to the people of Minnesota simply for selling a gallon of gas. If Defendant States are right about the substance and reach of state law, their actions imperil access to affordable energy everywhere and inculpate every State and indeed every person on the planet. Consequently, Defendant States threaten not only our system of federalism and equal sovereignty among States, but our basic way of life.

3. In the past when States have used state law to dictate interstate energy policy, other States have sued and this Court has acted. When “West Virginia, then the leading producer of natural gas, required gas producers in the State to meet the needs of all local customers before shipping any gas interstate,” this Court entertained a suit brought by” Ohio and Pennsylvania against West Virginia. Maryland v. Louisiana, 451 U.S. 725, 738 (1981) (discussing Pennsylvania v. West Virginia, 262 U.S. 553 (1923)). 

4. The Court’s intervention was warranted then and is warranted now because Defendant States are not independent nations with unrestrained sovereignty to do as they please. In our federal system, no State “can legislate for, or impose its own policy upon the other.” Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U.S. 46, 95 (1907);see also BMW of N. Am., Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 571-73 (1996). Yet Defendants seek to set emissions policy well beyond their borders—punishing conduct that other States find “essential and necessary … to the economic and material well-being” of their citizens. E.g., Ala. Code §9-1-6(a).

9. Defendant States are nevertheless proceeding to regulate interstate gas emissions under their state laws and in their state courts. Through artful pleading, they have avoided removal to federal court. See e.g., Minnesota v. Am. Petroleum Inst., 63 F.4th 703, 719 (8th Cir. 2023) (Stras, J., concurring). Each day carries the threat of sweeping injunctive relief or a catastrophic damages award that could restructure the national energy system. See Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 554 U.S. 471, 500-01 (2008) (discussing punitive damages and the “inherent uncertainty of the trial process”).

11. Plaintiff States and their citizens rely on traditional energy products every day. The assertion that Defendant States can regulate, tax, and enjoin the promotion, production, and use of such products beyond their borders—but outside the purview of federal law—threatens profound injury. Therefore, Plaintiff States have no choice but to invoke this Court’s “original and exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies between two or more States.”