The Supreme Court has an opportunity to pave the way for bringing order and a unified approach to an issue that knows no borders and impacts everyone: climate change.
That is why Indiana is leading a coalition of states urging the Supreme Court to rule that only federal common law applies to global climate change claims.
BP v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, which the Supreme Court will consider at oral argument this week, is one of more than fifteen common-law public-nuisance lawsuits filed against a few major fossil-fuel energy producers (including BP, Marathon, Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Royal Dutch Shell). These lawsuits, typically filed in state court, allege that global climate change is a “public nuisance” caused by the defendant energy companies, who must in turn abate the nuisance — principally by paying billions of dollars to the plaintiffs.
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