The Trump administration scored a major victory on Oct. 17 by sinking what would have been the world’s first global carbon tax at the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization. But an equally insidious carbon tax has been quietly advancing in county courthouses across the U.S. in the form of climate lawfare targeted almost exclusively at American industry. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to stop it.
Over the past few years, blue states and municipalities have filed dozens of tort suits in state courts against American energy companies claiming hundreds of billions of dollars in damages. One plaintiff-funded estimate recently claimed that the damages should total no less than $28 trillion—nearly the entire annual economic output of the U.S. The plaintiffs insist they are suing for local damages the way any plaintiff might and aren’t trying to set global climate policy. But a few weeks ago, the mask slipped.