Barr: U.S. Supreme Court should decide on the merits in climate case

National News

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5:05 PM on Thursday, October 1

Dan McCaleb

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Supreme Court should do its job and decide on the merits in a consequential climate case before it, former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr said Thursday.

Justices will hear arguments Monday in Suncor v. Boulder County Commissioners, one of dozens of cases filed in state courts by Democrat-run state and local governments against oil and gas companies in an attempt to make them pay billions of dollars in damages related to climate change.

"This is their job. I think they're abdicating their responsibility by not deciding," Barr told The Center Square at a roundtable discussion Thursday in Austin, Texas, hosted by the conservative Civitas Institute. "The idea that the United States is not hurt by this is ridiculous."

Many legal observers speculate that the Supreme Court will decide only on technicalities in the case and send it back to the state court for a final outcome after a jury trial. But Barr argues that federal deference applies and state courts and juries should not determine cross-jurisdictional cases that will impact all U.S. states, as well as foreign policy and energy consumers across the country.

"Every increase in the price of fossil fuels, every curtail of fossil fuels, there’s a huge cost," Barr said. "This should be regulated in Congress. But we’re going to have a [state] jury decide?"

But panelist Ernest Young, law professor at Duke University, said Congress would have to act if it wants to preempt state laws in cases like this. Young referenced the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, which allowed California's stricter regulations on pork producers nationwide for pork sold in the state.

"This a case about who decides," Young said. "Congress has to act if it wants to preempt state laws," arguing the Boulder case should go to trial in Colorado.

John Yoo, a senior fellow with Civitas at the University of Texas, said federal deference should apply for national security reasons.

"It is very important this case is being argued during the Iran war … because of the implications of national security and foreign policy," Yoo said. "Iran’s response [to the war] is to drive up oil and gas prices in the U.S."

Yoo noted that since the Russian war in Ukraine and the Iranian conflict, the U.S. has supplied European nations and others with oil to make up for supply chain disruptions. If energy companies were to lose any of the climate cases and face significant financial penalties, it would hurt U.S. national security and disrupt foreign policy.

"This runs into the federal government’s monopoly on national security," Yoo said. "Oil and gas production is important just for the national security of the U.S."

Energy worker advocacy group Power the Future released a report this week that warned if plaintiffs win major monetary awards against the oil and gas industry, gas prices would increase by about 41 cents a gallon. Others have argued that billion dollar verdicts would bankrupt the industry.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito recused himself this week from hearing arguments in the Suncor case because of his stock holdings in the energy industry.

Energy industry advocates have called for Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself from the case. They argue Kagan is biased in favor of Boulder County and climate science policies. Kagan wrote a forward in the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine's Fourth Edition of the "Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence," published in December 2025.

The manual referenced the "attribution theory," a disputed model used to posit scientific modeling as attributable to the effects of climate change from greenhouse gas emissions.

Barr said Thursday that Alito's recusal clouds what the Supreme Court could do in the Boulder case, adding that Kagan needs to make her own decision on whether to recuse herself.

• The Center Square reporter Andrew Rice contributed to this report.