The Left wants to punish the American energy industry from a Colorado courtroom

On Oct. 5, the Supreme Court will hear one of the most consequential energy cases in years. At the center of the case is a basic question: Can a city use state law to hold American energy companies financially responsible for the alleged local effects of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions?The case, Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, may have started in Colorado, but its consequences will not stay there. It could give the climate Left a powerful way to impose punitive regulation whenever its agenda fails in Washington.Boulder sued Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil, arguing that the companies’ production and promotion of fossil fuels contributed to climate change and caused local damage. They are seeking money for costs associated with wildfires, severe weather, infrastructure, and other alleged climate-related harms. Climate change is a global issue. Greenhouse gas emissions do not stop at the Colorado border, and they cannot be separated by state or traced neatly to one company. Boulder’s claims depend on energy production, sales, and emissions occurring across the country and around the world. China, India, and Russia remain far beyond the reach of this suit even though their industrial economies produce goods with far higher emissions.A Colorado courtroom cannot resolve that problem. It can only impose financial penalties on a small group of American companies for a global phenomenon while dirtier foreign competitors escape every penalty. That is regulation by lawsuit.One of the Boulder plaintiffs’ own lawyers has described tort liability as an “indirect carbon tax.” His larger admission matters: Consumers would bear the resulting costs. That strips away the legal packaging and reveals what this litigation is designed to accomplish.Boulder wants to use the courts to impose an energy policy that elected lawmakers never approved.That should concern every person already struggling with the cost of gasoline, electricity, groceries, and other basic necessities. Energy prices are built into nearly everything families buy. It raises costs throughout the economy.Federal law already addresses interstate air emissions through the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court has also recognized that greenhouse gas emissions require federal treatment. In its unanimous 2011 decision in American Electric Power v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act displaced federal common-law claims seeking to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.Boulder is attempting to work around that precedent by repackaging climate regulation as a state damages case. But calling something a tort claim does not change its real-world effect.The danger extends far beyond one lawsuit. If Boulder can proceed, other cities, counties, and states will follow. Each could apply its own laws, use its own standards, and demand its own damages for the same worldwide emissions.That kind of legal chaos would discourage investment in domestic energy, threaten jobs, and raise prices. It would also weaken the energy security President Donald Trump has made a national priority. America cannot achieve energy dominance while local governments use litigation to place open-ended liability on the companies responsible for supplying most of the nation’s energy.None of this means local governments lack legitimate powers. States and cities can enforce laws against actual fraud, address genuinely local pollution, and protect residents from identifiable misconduct within their jurisdictions.What they cannot do is use state law to govern worldwide emissions and dictate national energy policy.Climate policy requires difficult trade-offs involving affordability, reliability, economic growth, national security, and international diplomacy. Those decisions belong to the elected branches of the federal government, where people can debate them and hold policymakers accountable.HOW ONE CLIMATE LAWSUIT COULD JACK UP PRICES FOR EVERYONEThe Supreme Court agreed to hear this case because the issue reaches far beyond Boulder. The justices now have an opportunity to restore a clear constitutional boundary and prevent a patchwork of punitive local regulations imposed without a vote.One city cannot regulate the world from a Colorado courtroom. The Supreme Court should say so.Chris Johnson is the founder and president of the American Energy Leadership Institute.