“NJ’s climate change lawsuit against oil companies dismissed”, 6 February 2025

New Jersey’s legal claims that deceptive actions by major oil companies encouraged the unchecked burning of fossil fuels and worsening of climate change have been dismissed.

State Superior Court Judge Douglas Hurd in Mercer County ordered the state’s lawsuit dismissed Wednesday. Hurd wrote in his opinion that only federal law can govern the claims made by New Jersey, agreeing with arguments made by the oil companies’ lawyers…

The lawsuit, filed in 2022, claimed that oil industry actions to obfuscate connections between burning fossil fuels and global warming, despite industry scientists being aware of such links as far back as the 1950s, violated state law. Many of the world’s largest oil companies — ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips — as well as the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade association, were named as defendants. The attorney general’s office on Wednesday pledged to appeal the dismissal…

Dozens of similar cases have been filed by cities, counties and states around the country. So far none have made it to trial, and the oil companies have fought hard to have each dismissed, with mixed results. Some cases, like one brought by Delaware, have been tossed in decisions similar to Hurd’s. But others, like lawsuits from Massachusetts and Vermont, have been allowed to proceed...

“The New Jersey Superior Court’s decision joins the growing and nearly unanimous consensus among both federal and states courts across the country,” said Theodore Boutros, the attorney representing Chevron in both lawsuits.

“These types of claims are precluded and preempted by federal law and must be dismissed under clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent,” Boutros added, referring to a 2011 case in which the high court ruled that under the federal Clean Air Act, only the Environmental Protection Agency can set air pollution rules…