A judge has thrown out a climate change lawsuit filed by Bucks County Democrats, and he did so “with prejudice,” meaning the Democratic-majority county commission can’t refile it.
The lawsuit was originally approved by Democratic Commissioners Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia and Bob J. Harvie Jr. and Republican Gene DiGirolamo, though the latter soon withdrew his support.
It was the latest attempt by Democratic-led governments to use local ordinances to target global energy companies in the court system.
Court of Common Pleas Judge Stephen Corr ruled Bucks County’s suit can’t move forward because it violates a basic tenet of American law, the supremacy clause. Under the U.S. Constitution, federal law takes precedence over state laws and constitutions when there is a conflict.
“We agree with the Defendants that Bucks County fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted because Pennsylvania cannot apply its own laws to claims dealing with air in its ambient or interstate aspects, and, therefore, we are compelled to dismiss this lawsuit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction,” Corr wrote.
“We conclude that our federal structure does not allow Pennsylvania’s law, or any State’s law, to address the claims raised in Bucks County’s Complaint,” he added.
The ruling isn’t what environmentalists were hoping for when they convinced the county to join eight states, and more than two dozen cities and counties to use local nuisance and consumer deception laws against Big Oil.
The groups and governments were hoping for big money settlements from BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell, similar to the settlement reached with Big Tobacco in the 1990s.
While judges in Hawaii, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., have upheld the cases, judges in other states ruled the suits fall under federal law, specifically the Clean Air Act, passed in 1963.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit tossed New York City’s climate change lawsuit in 2021. “Such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law,” the judges wrote.
The New Jersey Superior Court made a similar ruling in February. “Only federal law can govern plaintiffs’ interstate and international emissions claims because ‘the basic scheme of the Constitution so demands,’” wrote Judge Douglas Hurd. “Therefore, plaintiffs’ complaint is hereby dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim.”
In the Bucks County case, Corr found the government’s arguments almost laughable.
He noted the county’s legal representation admitted during arguments that “the advertising, production, transport, and sale of Defendants’ fossil fuel products in Bucks County did not cause any harm to the County.”
Ted Boutrous, of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP, counsel for Chevron Corporation, told DVJournal he wasn’t surprised by the ruling.
“As Judge Corr declared, his decision joins the ‘growing chorus of state and federal courts across the United States, singing from the same hymnal,’ concluding that ‘our federal structure does not allow Pennsylvania law, or any State’s law, to address’ climate change lawsuits,” he said.
Corr’s criticism of Bucks County commissioners also extended to how the lawsuit was originally approved. While commissioners held a public meeting on the suit in January, they buried the plan in the consent agenda. That allowed them to vote without technically making an announcement.
“We are concerned about the manner in which the Commissioners went about hiring counsel and filing this lawsuit. We believe the conduct of the Commissioners violated the spirit of the Sunshine Act,” Corr wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court previously ruled state law could not be used in climate change suits. Justices unanimously ruled the Clean Air Act preempts state laws in the 2011 American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut case. Eight states sued power companies, claiming greenhouse gas emissions were a public nuisance.
In the latest climate cases, the Supreme Court is allowing climate cases to move through the lower courts before it steps in. That may happen sooner than later. The Trump administration recently sued Michigan and Hawaii over planned climate suits, and New York and Vermont over their “climate superfund laws.”
