Twenty-eight amicus briefs were filed in support of Colorado’s Boulder County in a Supreme Court case attempting to take down energy companies in the name of climate change.
A former Arizona solicitor general calls the case an example of “climate lawfare” in part because of the monetary ties most of those filing the briefs have to left-wing organizations.
Former Arizona Solicitor General and executive director of Alliance for Consumers O.H. Skinner told The Center Square that “the amicus briefs basically confirm” that the lawsuit “is an ideologically driven, dark money-funded attempt to impose a left wing set of policies on the country using the courtroom.”
This tactic of pushing laws through in a courtroom rather than the standard legislative process is known as “lawfare,” he said.
Boulder County, Colorado, filed a lawsuit against energy companies because they claim “fossil fuel companies should be liable for damages resulting from emissions that cause climate change across the globe,” as The Center Square reported.
Skinner told The Center Square that most of the 28 amicus briefs “tie back to the same networks of funding that are pushing [climate] cases.”
“Now, to me, there’s nothing that’s illegal, unethical, or immoral about that,” Skinner said. “What I think is, it tells you something.
“When you look at these cases and you see that the main law firm pushing the case is being funded by giant pools of liberal dark money,” it “further confirms that this is about ideological lawfare,"” Skinner said.
Skinner said the law firm pushing many climate cases is Sher Edling, and that the “apparatus behind it is being substantially funded by big pools of ideological money, whether it’s out of the Tides Foundation or the Arabella Advisors Network.”
“The biggest pools of left wing capital around are investing tons of money in pushing these cases,” Skinner said.
The amicus briefs are also “confirmation” that lawfare “is not going to stop until the Supreme Court conclusively stops it,” Skinner said.
“When you see people putting this much money behind something…they’re not going to go quietly into the night,” Skinner said. “It’s just unreasonable to assume that the Left intends to slink off in the absence of a resounding loss.”
Skinner said if Boulder loses in the U.S. Supreme Court, the people of Boulder will still “be allowed to live their dream progressive lifestyle.”
They will “still be able to mandate electric vehicles and composting and make their electric prices go crazy expensive,” Skinner said.
“What they won’t be able to do is make the rest of us live their lifestyle by force of court,” Skinner said. “At the end of the day, no one’s trying to make them live like the rest of us, but they are busy trying to make the rest of us live like them.”
If Boulder wins the lawsuit and the case proceeds, it will “lead to energy companies having to basically shut down production,” Skinner said.
“China won’t have to,” Skinner said. “But American energy companies will have to shut down production.”
O.H. said that climate lawfare is harmful because it is “effectively trying to impose a net zero agenda on the whole country, which means air conditioning, beef, gas-powered cars, all of that stuff is on the chopping block.”
“This is the part that’s really dangerous: it won’t be because you voted for it in Texas. It won’t be because you moved to Texas for this or Arizona or Kansas. It doesn’t matter,” Skinner said.
“It will be because they got some court order that affects the whole country,” Skinner said. “And nobody ever voted for it.”
” It just happened,” Skinner said. “You are living in your state, but it looks a heck of a lot like Gavin Newsom is dictating the rules around you.”
Skinner said that this position is “really not good for a democracy because it teaches people that where they live and who they vote for doesn’t matter.”
