JULY 23, 2026
Dozens of climate lawsuits against energy companies face new legislative and judicial challenges
Approximately 40 climate lawsuits have been filed by states, counties, and cities across the United States seeking damages from oil and gas companies for their alleged role in climate change. Eleven states, the District of Columbia, and dozens of local governments have joined these suits. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving Boulder, Colorado, that centers on whether a single county's court can set energy policy nationally.
About 40 nearly identical lawsuits filed by states, municipalities, and counties ask oil and gas companies to pay billions of dollars in damages tied to climate change. The Supreme Court's decision to take up the Boulder, Colorado, case this year has elevated the legal fight, with the central question being whether local courts can effectively dictate national energy policy.
The Washington Examiner's op-ed, written by Frank Lasee of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a free-market nonprofit, described the California-based law firm Sher Edling as filing "copy-and-paste complaints on a contingency-fee basis" on behalf of numerous plaintiffs. The piece reported that congressional investigators documented roughly $3 million routed to Sher Edling through the Collective Action Fund and the New Venture Fund, described as pass-through vehicles that are not required to disclose their donors.
The op-ed characterized the lawsuits as "climate lawfare" — the use of litigation to achieve policy outcomes it argued could not be won through the democratic process. It contended that any costs imposed on energy producers, and any legal defense costs, would ultimately be passed on to consumers through higher energy prices, constituting what the author described as an unenacted "tax on energy."