E&E News by POLITICO reports that the Boulder climate lawsuit against fossil fuel producers has become a dividing line in Colorado’s attorney general race. According to the article, all four Democratic candidates for attorney general support Boulder’s lawsuit, while the Republican candidates argue the litigation could threaten Colorado’s energy industry, raise costs, and turn the AG’s office into a climate-activist war room.
That is the real issue here. This is not some cartoon defense of Big Oil. This is about whether Boulder gets to use the courts to kneecap an industry Colorado still depends on for heat, fuel, jobs, tax revenue, agriculture, transportation, and the modern miracle of getting groceries to shelves before everyone starts eating bumper stickers.
The Bullet Point Brief
- The article says the Supreme Court is expected to take up Suncor v. Boulder, a case that could affect more than two dozen local-government climate lawsuits seeking compensation from fossil fuel companies. That makes this bigger than Boulder’s usual moral pageantry with a mountain backdrop.
- Every Democrat running for Colorado attorney general supports the lawsuit. That may thrill the activist class, but it should worry anyone who thinks the AG’s job is law, not climate activism in a taxpayer-funded cape.
- Republicans Michael Allen and Dave Willson criticized the litigation, arguing it risks higher energy costs, threatens jobs, and puts Colorado’s economy and affordability on the line. That is the frame Republicans should use: energy, jobs, affordability, and rule of law.
- E&E notes Gov. Jared Polis and current Attorney General Phil Weiser have been much more cautious publicly. Translation: even some Democrats know this thing has political blast radius, especially outside Boulder’s reusable-mug jurisdiction.
- Seven Colorado counties filed briefs supporting the energy industry, arguing one county should not impose its policy preferences on sister counties through tort litigation. That is the plain-English point: Boulder does not get to set national energy policy from a courtroom because its activist class needs another virtue trophy.
My Bottom Line
Regular Coloradans are paying the bills while political lawyers and Boulder climate crusaders try to litigate policy they could not honestly sell statewide.
Everybody wants heat in January. Everybody wants fuel in the truck. Everybody wants roads, food delivery, ambulances, school buses, farm equipment, affordable groceries, and a tax base that keeps rural counties alive. But some of the same people who depend on modern energy every hour of every day want to sue the people who make modern life work, then act like the cost will be paid by a villain in a boardroom instead of families at the pump and small businesses on the utility bill.
That is the scam. The lawsuit gets dressed up as accountability, but the real game is policy by courtroom. If the Legislature cannot pass it, if voters will not swallow it, if communities outside Boulder object, no problem. Just hand it to judges, call it climate justice, and let the legal fees bloom like spring weeds in a drainage ditch.
The Supreme Court angle matters because this is not merely local theater. The question is how far cities and counties can go in weaponizing courts against national energy questions. If every locality gets to sue its way into energy policy, then the country does not have a coherent energy system. It has a lawsuit buffet.
The attorney general’s office should not be a climate nonprofit with subpoena power. It should defend the law, protect consumers, fight fraud, back public safety, and respect the limits of the office. Boulder can perform its climate morality play all it wants. Colorado’s next attorney general should not turn the whole state into the stage crew.
Source: E&E News by Politico
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