The Supreme Court Let Lawsuits Against Oil Companies Proceed. This Is What It Means 

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Aynsley O’Neill with Pat Parenteau, a former EPA regional counsel and emeritus professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School. 
In 2021, Honolulu, Hawai’i, brought a lawsuit against a group of fossil fuel companies over the climate and environmental impacts of burning oil and gas. The case potentially makes the companies liable for over a billion dollars worth of damages.
Nearly 40 similar cases are now working their way through state courts across the country. Fossil fuel industry defendants appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to block the Honolulu case from forcing the companies to turn over records and go through a trial. 
But the justices declined the industry’s requests and are allowing the cases to move forward in the lower courts for now. 
The court’s restraint is a big deal for climate litigation, says Pat Parenteau, former EPA regional counsel and emeritus professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School. And he considers the high court’s willingness to let states and localities seek climate redress in the courts a bright spot as we head into the start of a second Trump administration, which is forecast to favor federal climate inaction. 
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 
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PAT PARENTEAU: This lawsuit filed by the city of Honolulu against major oil companies—Exxon, Sunoco and others—is seeking to recover the costs from climate damage that states like Hawaii and cities like Honolulu are incurring: storms and droughts and heat and so forth, and the money is to be used for adaptation. It’s not one of the typical climate cases where you’re trying to reduce emissions. It’s a case where [the plaintiff is] saying the emissions are continuing and they’re doing a lot of damage, and the companies that are responsible for marketing and selling the products that are causing climate change need to bear some of the costs. Not all of the costs, but some of the costs of dealing with the impacts from climate change.
AYNSLEY O’NEILL: There’s about 40 similar cases around the country. How does this case differ from, say, the case in Massachusetts alleging that Exxon misled consumers and investors about climate risks?
PARENTEAU: There are some similarities. That particular point of deception is present in the Honolulu case as well, but Honolulu is arguing a lot of other theories, including things like public nuisance and strict liability, whereas the Massachusetts case is really focused on that consumer protection aspect and on false advertising. What Massachusetts is seeking is penalties and, of course, an acknowledgement from the company that they haven’t been entirely forthcoming and honest about the way they’ve marketed their products, and also something called disgorgement of profits—“ill-gotten gains,” as we cal