News & Analysis
February 23, 2026
After denying five previous pleas from Big Oil and its allies, the U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it will hear two fossil fuel companies’ arguments for why they should not stand trial in one of a growing number of lawsuits that seek to hold Big Oil companies accountable for their climate lies and the damage that they’ve caused.
The City and County of Boulder, Colorado, is suing ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy to make them pay for the cost of local climate damages because the companies deceived the public about the dangers of their fossil fuel products and continued to produce, market, and sell them at dangerous levels despite knowing the risk. A recent report estimated that climate change could cost Colorado up to $37 billion by 2050.
Last year, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that Boulder’s case could move into discovery and proceed toward trial, upholding a state trial court decision that rejected Exxon and Suncor’s arguments that federal law preempted Boulder’s claims. In their order today, the justices agreed to hear the fossil fuel companies’ appeal of that decision, but they also asked the parties to answer an additional question: does the Supreme Court even have the authority to decide that question at this time, before Boulder has a chance to present its case at trial?
In January 2025, the Supreme Court denied a virtually identical petition from Big Oil companies to review a similar ruling from the Hawai`i Supreme Court that allowed a climate deception lawsuit from Honolulu to proceed toward trial. Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from considering the appeal in Honolulu’s case, as well as a separate 2023 petition in Boulder’s case, but did not do so in Boulder’s case now. Alito owns stock in other oil companies facing climate deception lawsuits.
The Hawai`i and Colorado Supreme Courts — the only two state supreme courts to have ruled on the issue to date — both rejected Big Oil’s argument that state climate deception cases are preempted by federal law.
Local communities are living with the mounting costs of climate change,” said Aaron Brockett, mayor of Boulder. “The supreme court should affirm Colorado’s right to hold these companies accountable for the harm they have caused in Colorado.”
Boulder, Colorado is one of a growing number of communities across the U.S. — including Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, the District of Columbia, and the states of Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota and Connecticut — whose climate deception lawsuits against Big Oil companies are advancing toward discovery and trial after courts denied the companies’ motions to dismiss.
As more cases get closer to trial, the fossil fuel industry has been lobbying Congress for a legal shield that would give them immunity from facing climate accountability in court. In January, the American Petroleum Institute announced that killing state climate lawsuits is a top 2026 priority for the oil lobby, and this month U.S. Rep. Harriet Hagement (R-WY) said she is working on such a bill.
“Big Oil’s climate lies are the most consequential and harmful corporate deception campaign in history, and the communities paying the price for that deception deserve to put these companies on trial,” said CCI President Richard Wiles. “Exxon’s desperation to escape accountability does not change the evidence of their wrongdoing or the law that lower courts agree is on Boulder’s side.
“If fossil fuel companies have done nothing wrong, why have they spent the last year lobbying Congress for immunity?”
