The Supreme Court has scheduled oral argument on Oct. 4 in a climate lawsuit that will decide whether local governments can sue oil companies for damages from bad weather they claim oil companies are causing, or if the impact of global emissions is a federal issue that state laws can’t address. [some emphasis, links added]
The case stems from a lawsuit that the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, filed against oil companies in 2018, alleging they concealed the impact of their products on the climate, thereby making them liable for damages caused by bad weather.
The stakes are high, as evidenced by the dozens of “friend of the court” briefs filed in the case by both the defendants and the plaintiffs.
Do what we say, not what we do
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., led 89 Democratic members of Congress in filing a brief in support of the case. The brief includes a chart purporting to show that briefs in support of the defendants have been funded by “fossil fuel-linked donors.”
These included the oft-demonized Koch Brothers, as well as oil majors, such as Chevron and ExxonMobil.
The anti-energy brief curiously ignores the dark-money network connected to Sen. Whitehouse.
Victor Sher and Matt Edling, founding partners of the Sher Edling law firm, which is spearheading the climate litigation campaign against oil companies, have donated thousands of dollars to Whitehouse’s election campaigns, according to public records.
In 2019, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board took Whitehouse to task for advocating that amicus briefs disclose financial connections to the parties in a climate case, while at the same time failing to disclose Sher’s and Edling’s donations when filing briefs in support of cases in which Sher Edling is involved.
Research and judicial training
The law firm’s fingerprints are also evident in the development of research supporting the defendants in climate cases, and the training of judges overseeing them.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Victor Sher seeking information about the law firm’s role in the Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Judiciary Project, which produces training materials for judges who are overseeing climate cases.
The project has been accused of bias in favor of the plaintiffs in those cases because it excludes all scientific material unfavorable to them.
In the letter, Jordan points out that research from Michael Burger, who is Of Counsel with Sher Edling and executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, which advocates for waging litigation campaigns against oil companies, is included in the Climate Judiciary Project’s materials without disclosing his interest in the plaintiff’s position.
Jordan’s letter suggests that “evidence exists that Mr. Burger may have ghostwritten parts of a chapter on Climate Science in the Fourth Edition of the Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence […] The FJC recently removed the chapter from the manual after 27 state attorneys general noted that the material was authored by biased climate litigation activists and designed to predispose judges in favor of plaintiffs.”
Burger joined Victor Sher and Matt Edling in filing a brief in support of Boulder’s case.
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