By Karen Savage

The acting solicitor general will be allowed time to argue in support of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and nearly two dozen other companies next week during oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has agreed to review a technical ruling by the Fourth Circuit in a climate liability lawsuit filed by Baltimore.

The high court granted the request Friday, after Acting Solicitor General Jeffery B. Wall requested he be allowed to use 10 minutes of the fossil fuel companies’ time, which the energy giants have agreed to cede. 

“The United States and its officers are frequent litigants, and it therefore has a significant interest in the proper application of statutory provisions governing federal appellate jurisdiction,” Wall wrote in a motion filed last month. 

Pat Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at the Vermont Law School, said the granting of Wall’s request by the Supreme Court  isn’t unusual—even considering Wall will likely be out of that post two days later when President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated and begins the process of installing his own administration.  

By Karen Savage

The Supreme Court has never authorized broad appellate court review of jurisdictional rulings by lower courts and—despite arguments presented by several fossil fuel companies attempting to duck a climate liability suit filed against them by Baltimore—that shouldn’t change, the city said in a new brief to the court.

The high court agreed in October to review a procedural question in the case when it granted a petition from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and nearly two dozen other companies. It said it would  weigh in on a ruling by the Fourth Circuit that the case belongs in state court, where it was filed in 2018. 

In a brief filed Wednesday, Baltimore said the appellate court ruled correctly. 

After the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, the fossil fuel companies asked it to expand the review to include rulings by the First, Ninth, and Tenth circuits, which have all sent similar climate cases to state courts. The companies want the high court to rule that climate change-related suits filed against the industry by nearly two dozen municipalities across the country belong in federal court.

Baltimore rejects that notion. 

“The petition raised a single question presented,” attorneys for Baltimore wrote, adding that in their initial petition to the court, the fossil fuel companies “represented that ‘as it comes to the court, this case presents only that question.’” 

Ultimately, the Supreme Court’s ruling could affect whether climate suits filed since 2017 will be heard in state court, where nearly all have been filed, or in federal court, where the companies think they have a better chance of getting them dismissed.