A New Jersey court dismissed the state attorney general's lawsuit accusing the nation's largest oil and gas producers of causing global warming—a massive blow for climate activists who saw the case as an opportunity to regulate emissions nationwide and worldwide.
In his Wednesday decision, New Jersey Superior Court judge Douglas Hurd sided with oil industry defendants, who had argued that federal law alone could be used to regulate nationwide emissions. Hurd also pointed to rulings in New York, Delaware, and Maryland, which similarly found that the "U.S. Constitution’s federal structure does not allow such state law claims to proceed."
"Only federal law can govern plaintiffs’ interstate and international emissions claims because 'the basic scheme of the Constitution so demands.' Therefore, plaintiffs’ complaint is hereby dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim," Hurd concluded.
The state's complaint accused the defendants of knowingly selling products that cause global warming and sought to force them to pay billions of dollars in damages, something critics warned could effectively put the companies out of business. It also alleged the companies waged a decades-long campaign to hide the dangers of their products.
Hurd's ruling is a significant defeat for New Jersey attorney general Matthew Platkin—who said the effort would force oil companies to "pay for the harms they’ve caused" after he filed the lawsuit in October 2022—and for environmentalists who have increasingly turned to the judicial system to attack the oil industry. It is the latest in a string of similar defeats courts have handed jurisdictions nationwide in recent months.
In a statement to the Washington Free Beacon, the New Jersey attorney general's office said it would immediately appeal the ruling.
"We are disappointed in today’s decision, which allows some of the country’s most powerful companies to escape accountability for hiding the truth and misleading New Jerseysans [sic] about the role their products play in causing climate change," a spokeswoman said. "The trial court’s decision is wrong, and inconsistent with decisions in other states, and we are appealing immediately."
"We will not let companies get away with putting profit above public safety," she added.
ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, and the American Petroleum Institute trade association were all listed as defendants in the case.
"The New Jersey Superior Court’s decision joins the growing and nearly unanimous consensus among both federal and state courts across the country," Theodore Boutrous Jr., a lawyer for Chevron, said in a statement Wednesday.
"These types of claims are precluded and preempted by federal law and must be dismissed under clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent," Boutrous continued. "As the Court rightly held, ‘the leading and most persuasive case supporting dismissal is the Second Circuit decision in the City of New York. There, the federal appeals court rejected the availability of state tort law in the climate change context.’"
Several climate cases against the oil industry, meanwhile, remain ongoing—in addition to New Jersey, eight states, more than a dozen cities and counties, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, which altogether are home to more than 25 percent of Americans, have filed similar litigation.
The California-based law firm Sher Edling has represented the majority of jurisdictions that have sued oil companies for climate damages. The firm is funded by left-wing billionaire-backed nonprofits, the Free Beacon previously reported.