Energy Giants Walk Away From Supreme Court With Big Win

The Supreme Court unanimously sided on Friday with major energy companies seeking to move environmental lawsuits against them to federal court.

The justices agreed 8-0 with Chevron’s claim that lawsuits seeking to hold the company accountable for damage to Louisiana’s coast should be heard in federal court, not state court, because the case involves Chevron’s crude-oil production for the government during the Second World War.

“Chevron’s case fits comfortably within the ordinary meaning of a suit ‘relating to’ the performance of federal duties,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s opinion. “Chevron has plausibly alleged a close relationship between its challenged conduct and the performance of its federal duties—not a tenuous, remote, or peripheral one.”

Around 40 environmental lawsuits have been filed by coastal parishes against oil and gas companies over their alleged role in costal erosion. In one case that went to trial in state court, a Louisiana jury in April determined Chevron must pay $745 million to the state’s Plaquemines Parish to help restore wetlands.

“Chevron applauds the Supreme Court’s unanimous judgment recognizing that these lawsuits belong in federal court,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “As the Court recognized, the plaintiffs’ claims are related to activities that Chevron and other energy companies performed under federal supervision during World War II. Those claims are flawed as a matter of both state law and federal law, and Chevron looks forward to litigating these cases in federal court, where they belong.”

Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from hearing the case because he holds stock in ConocoPhillips, the parent company of one of the parties originally named in the case.

“Yet another scheme by the climate lobby to weaponize the courts and forum-shop has been thwarted,” JCN President Carrie Severino wrote on X. “Chevron will now get its day in court before a more neutral federal judge.”