Puerto Rico’s legal assault on major oil companies has run aground, less than a year after it began. And it’s a bad sign for similar cases filed by Democrats, who face skepticism from the bench.
Puerto Rico filed court documents May 2 announcing it “voluntarily dismisses this entire case without prejudice,” meaning it could restart the suit. No reason was given for the decision.
It’s the latest setback for environmentalists who persuaded eight states and more than two dozen cities and counties to join a strategy of using local laws to target global energy producers. The governments accuse companies like Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Marathon Oil of violating local nuisance or consumer deception laws, to get big-dollar settlements similar to the outcome of the lawsuits against Big Tobacco.
The conditions are different this time. Unlike the 50-state bipartisan backlash against Big Tobacco, the climate suits involve Democratic-run states like Rhode Island and California and municipalities plus the District of Columbia.
Puerto Rico’s suit was filed in 2024 when Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, a Democrat, was in office. The new governor, Jenniffer González-Colón, is a Republican.
Energy advocates had been pressuring González-Colón’s administration to end its suit. Canary CEO Dan Eberhart, a major donor to President Trump’s campaigns who also leads a Texas-based oilfield services company, warned González-Colón that the legal action against oil and gas producers went against Trump’s promises to unlock American energy. He recently wrote in Forbes that Puerto Rico’s legal action was counterproductive for the island.
“Any action the governor takes to address the electricity crisis is being undermined by the climate lawsuit. … Meanwhile, Puerto Rican families suffer the consequences of a failed energy policy,” Eberhart wrote.
Energy companies say the lawsuits arise under federal law. They argue the Clean Air Act regulates interstate emissions and supersedes state law.
It’s an argument the Supreme Court previously backed. Justices unanimously ruled the Clean Air Act preempts state laws in the 2011 American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut case. Eight states sued power companies, claiming greenhouse gas emissions were a public nuisance.
In the latest climate cases, the Supreme Court is allowing the case to move through the lower courts before it steps in. Many of those suits aren’t going the way environmentalists hoped.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit tossed New York City’s climate change lawsuit in 2021. “Such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law,” the judges wrote.
The New Jersey Superior Court made a similar ruling in February. “Only federal law can govern plaintiffs’ interstate and international emissions claims because ‘the basic scheme of the Constitution so demands,’” wrote Judge Douglas Hurd. “Therefore, plaintiffs’ complaint is hereby dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim.”
Other legal blows were delivered in Maryland, where state judges in separate cases ruled the lawsuits filed by Baltimore, Annapolis and Anne Arundel County went too far and dismissed those cases. In Pennsylvania, a judge noted he was being asked to rule on alleged damage done in local communities by global actors and actions.
With Puerto Rico ending its suit, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., the lead attorney for Chevron, said the clock is ticking on the environmentalists’ strategy.
“This dismissal adds to the growing momentum among federal and state courts holding that states and municipalities cannot use state laws to sue over climate change. These claims are precluded and preempted by federal law and must be dismissed under clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent,” Boutrous said.
The Trump administration appears ready to get involved.
The Justice Department sued New York and Vermont last week over their climate superfund laws. Those laws collect millions of dollars in fines from major energy companies. The federal government sued Hawaii and Michigan to keep them from suing Big Oil in state court under their state laws.
“These burdensome and ideologically motivated laws and lawsuits threaten American energy independence and our country’s economic and national security,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
The Justice Department said that states that pass superfund laws or sue Big Oil want to get around the Clean Air Act and violate the Constitution. Trump instructed Bondi last month to stop the climate suits in an executive order to “protect American energy from state overreach.”
