The Green New Deal failed in Congress because Americans kept rejecting it at the ballot box.
So the Left stopped asking voters and handed the agenda to trial lawyers instead.
What that lawyer said next is exactly why energy bills are about to become a political weapon.
How ExxonMobil and Suncor Became the Targets of 30 Climate Lawsuits Across America
Boulder County, Colorado and the City of Boulder sued Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil in 2018 under Colorado state tort law, claiming the companies caused local harms they blame on global emissions.
A lawyer representing Boulder said the quiet part out loud – predicting publicly that the bankruptcy of American energy companies is a likely result of these lawsuits.
They aren't hiding the goal.
The Left spent decades trying to kill fossil fuels through Congress and elections but couldn’t pass their most ambitious plans.
So they switched tactics – dragging energy companies into local courtrooms one by one, bleeding them through legal fees and jackpot verdicts, until the industry itself collapses.
More than 30 of these climate liability lawsuits are now active in state courts across the country.
Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. have all seen similar cases advance.
If Boulder wins, the Left doesn't need Congress or voters – just one friendly judge at a time, in one blue-city courtroom at a time, until there's nothing left of American energy.
ExxonMobil said it directly: "Climate policy shouldn't be set through fragmented state-court actions."
Trump Filed an Unsolicited Supreme Court Brief and Your Gas Bill Is Why It Matters
Trump's Justice Department filed an unsolicited brief in September 2025 – nobody asked them, they just showed up – calling the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling to let Boulder's lawsuit proceed "manifestly wrong."
Trump had also issued Executive Order 14260, "Protecting American Energy from State Overreach," ordering the Justice Department to fight any state law designed to strangle domestic energy production.
A federal district court in New York recently ruled for Trump and 22 allied states, finding that federal law blocked New York's attempt to make energy companies pay for costs the state blamed on fossil fuels.
The legal theory in Suncor is identical.
The DOJ argument is airtight: the Clean Air Act already gives the federal government authority over interstate and international greenhouse gas emissions.
States cannot sue their way into national energy policy.
University of Virginia law professor Saikrishna Prakash – who filed a brief supporting the energy companies said: "Boulder claims that Colorado can reach around the United States and regulate production everywhere by attaching liability to it."
That's one Colorado county trying to set energy prices for the entire country from a courtroom.
In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled in American Electric Power v. Connecticut that the Clean Air Act preempted federal common law climate nuisance claims.
But the court left state law untouched.
Climate activists noticed immediately, moved to state courts, and have been exploiting that gap ever since.
Senator Ted Cruz introduced the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026 to cut these lawsuits off through legislation.
Conservative legal scholar John Yoo filed an amicus brief in the case and wrote separately that SCOTUS must "end environmental extortion of American energy."
The groups driving this campaign aren't pretending to be neutral on capitalism.
Extinction Rebellion calls capitalism the engine driving what they describe as the biggest death project in human history.
System Change Not Climate Change calls for anti-capitalist revolution as the solution to emissions.
If Boulder wins, fossil-fuel producers will raise prices, gas and utility bills will spike, and every American family will absorb a de facto carbon tax imposed one local verdict at a time – while the green lobby celebrates.
The Supreme Court has a clean shot today to end the entire strategy.
If SCOTUS rules that the Clean Air Act preempts these state tort claims – which it should, because regulating international emissions is a federal job – three dozen similar lawsuits collapse overnight.
Boulder's own lawyer already told the country where this ends.
SCOTUS should believe him.
If they don't, every Democrat attorney general in every blue state files their own version before the ink dries.
Sources:
- O.H. Skinner, "Climate Activists Want The Supreme Court To Impose A Green New Deal That Voters Rejected," The Federalist, October 2, 2026.
- Amy Howe, "Court announces cases it will hear in October," SCOTUSblog, August 4, 2026.
- "US Supreme Court Sets Climate Suit for First Case of Next Term," Washington Examiner, August 5, 2026.
- "Trump DOJ scores win for energy consumers in federal court," Washington Examiner, September 5, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Amicus Brief, Suncor Energy USA Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, September 11, 2025.
