Former Attorney General Bill Barr and legal experts are warning that a wave of climate lawsuits targeting American energy companies, with a landmark case set for Supreme Court argument on October 5, could drive up household energy bills while handing market share to China and Russia.
Barr, now a partner at Torridon Law, spoke at a National Press Club forum in Washington and in a separate interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation on Wednesday, laying out what he described as the economic and geopolitical consequences of letting state-court climate suits proceed against private energy producers. He was joined on the panel by Jennifer Hernandez, a partner at Holland and Knight who has practiced environmental and land use law for four decades, and Phil Goldberg, special counsel to the Manufacturers' Accountability Project.
At the center of the debate is Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a case the Supreme Court agreed to review on February 23. Boulder County, the City of Boulder, and San Miguel County sued Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil back in 2018, seeking to recover costs of adapting to wildfires and extreme heat. The local governments allege the companies concealed the risks of their products. The justices have scheduled oral argument for October 5 and directed both sides to argue whether the Court even has jurisdiction to hear the case. A ruling is expected by the end of the term in June 2027.
Barr's core argument is straightforward: because state-owned energy companies in countries like China and Russia enjoy sovereign immunity, climate lawsuits filed in American courts can only reach private, Western producers. The result, he told the Daily Caller News Foundation, is a lopsided playing field.
Barr put it bluntly:
"Because of sovereign immunity, the suits couldn't be brought against government-owned energy companies, and so the only companies that would end up being hurt by this are private companies."
He extended the point to consumer prices. If American companies face billions in liability while foreign state-owned producers do not, the cost gap gets passed straight to the people filling their gas tanks and heating their homes.
"They can go out and get oil, and get it from around the world, and sell it without paying this carbon tax, essentially. Whereas, if one of our companies is selling the oil, then these costs are passed along to the consumers."
When asked whether the consequences for American energy producers were an unintended side effect of the litigation campaign, Barr did not hedge. "I think their objective has been to destroy the American energy industry," he said. Asked who gains market share if plaintiffs succeed: "Our adversaries."
The Supreme Court's decision to take up the case comes after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 5-2 in May 2025 that federal law did not preempt Boulder's claims, a decision that opened the door for the suit to proceed under state tort law rather than federal regulation.
The Boulder case does not exist in isolation. Barr described what he called "an avalanche of cases" on the panel, noting that several dozen states and municipalities have brought climate suits seeking hundreds of billions of dollars from American energy companies. Puerto Rico alone is seeking $100 billion over a single hurricane. Roughly two dozen similar climate suits are pending nationwide.
That litigation volume, Barr argued, "keeps a cloud over the industry" regardless of whether any individual suit succeeds. The discovery process alone, forcing companies to hand over internal documents and submit to depositions, imposes significant costs and uncertainty on defendants even before a verdict.
Barr pointed to Europe as a cautionary example. He told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Europe had committed "industrial suicide" through its energy policies, with energy costs climbing so far that European industry can no longer compete. Imposing similar costs on American producers through litigation, he warned, would produce "a radical contraction of our economy, the loss of jobs, and extremely high energy costs."
Goldberg, the Manufacturers' Accountability Project counsel, framed the legal question differently on the panel. He said the case is not about whether climate change is real. It is about where climate policy gets decided, in individual state courtrooms, or through a uniform federal response. He noted that 26 states filed briefs arguing Colorado cannot set rules for conduct inside their borders.
A related legal development landed just weeks ago. On September 1, a federal judge blocked New York's $75 billion climate superfund law, finding the Clean Air Act preempts the state's attempt to impose liability for emissions created outside its borders. That ruling echoed the Supreme Court's 2011 decision in American Electric Power v. Connecticut, which held that federal law governs interstate emissions claims.
The tension between those federal preemption rulings and the Colorado Supreme Court's contrary decision is precisely what makes the Suncor case a potential turning point. If the justices side with Boulder, it could validate the legal theory behind every pending state-court climate suit in the country.
Hernandez, who sits on the board of the Breakthrough Institute, shifted the focus from geopolitics to kitchen tables. She warned that a ruling for Boulder could fall hardest on families already struggling to afford basic necessities.
"I think upward mobility is at stake. I think the wrong decision could plunge even more families into poverty."
Energy costs, she argued, are not optional expenses that families can trim when prices rise. "They're not elastic. You can't decide whether or not you cook. You have to cook," she told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Hernandez cited the California Air Resources Board's 2022 scoping plan to make her point concrete. That plan, produced by California's own regulators, found the state's climate policies will cost households earning less than $100,000 a year more than they save. In other words, the families least able to absorb higher costs are the ones who end up paying the most.
Meanwhile, federal courts have been wrestling with the boundaries of green energy policy in other contexts, underscoring how much is at stake as judges and justices draw lines around regulatory authority.
"If you don't have too much money, you end up spending even more of it on basic necessities, and then you start having to make choices: medical care or cooking."
Hernandez did not spare the litigation's advocates. She argued they prioritize abstract global stakes over the immediate harm to real families, calling the framing "hyperbolic" and saying it "vastly understates the harm and pain that they're causing."
The litigation campaign has no shortage of institutional support. Left-leaning climate groups and legal figures filed at least 20 amicus curiae briefs backing Boulder in August. The Center for Progressive Reform hosted a webinar this month at which supporters of the litigation argued the case gives local governments a way to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate damages.
EarthRights International represents Boulder County, the City of Boulder, and San Miguel County in the suit. Neither the county nor EarthRights had a representative on the Wednesday panel, and no post-panel response from either party was reported.
Barr dismissed the underlying legal theory as "all a shell game." His argument: even if a court awards damages, global emissions do not change. Production simply shifts to state-owned competitors in nations with no interest in reducing their carbon output. American consumers pay more. American workers lose jobs. And the atmosphere gets no cleaner.
The composition and conduct of the Supreme Court itself have drawn scrutiny in recent months, adding another layer of political pressure to an already charged docket.
How the justices rule in Suncor will determine whether roughly two dozen pending climate suits can proceed, or whether federal law draws a line that state courts cannot cross. If Boulder prevails, every energy company operating in the United States faces a patchwork of state-by-state liability that no amount of compliance with federal regulation can shield against.
The Court's own members have emphasized their obligation to follow the law regardless of political winds, a principle that will face a direct test when the justices take the bench on October 5.
If the goal of climate litigation is a cleaner planet, punishing the companies that operate under American environmental standards while leaving state-owned polluters untouched is a strange way to get there, and American families will be the ones picking up the tab.
