Republicans join push for Supreme Court to allow climate lawsuits

Former high-ranking Republican EPA officials and a prominent conservative scholar joined Democrats on Monday, backing local governments seeking to hold the oil and gas industry legally accountable for damages caused by climate change.

Christine Todd Whitman, EPA administrator under former President George W. Bush, and William Reilly, EPA chief under former President George H.W. Bush, added their names to “friend of the court” briefs urging the Supreme Court to allow climate lawsuits against fossil producers to be heard in court. Jonathan Adler, a high-profile conservative professor at William & Mary Law School, filed his own brief supporting the climate litigation.

The bipartisan legal show of support comes a week after the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, outlined their arguments in Suncor v. Boulder, a blockbuster climate case the Supreme Court will decide in its next term.

Exxon, Suncor and other producers have asked the justices to overturn a 2025 Colorado Supreme Court ruling allowing a lawsuit filed against them by the two governments to proceed in state court. The suit is one of dozens from local governments seeking compensation from fossil fuel companies for the costs of dealing with climate change, including paying for disaster recovery.