Despite existing Supreme Court decisions to the contrary, state level officials, egged on by climate activists, continue to use state laws to try to circumvent the nation’s highest court to advance their counterproductive climate agenda. This legal crusade is putting national security at grave risk, and these officials could care less. It has to stop, and the U.S. Supreme Court should state loud and clear that enough is enough.
The most recent case is in a Hawaiian court, where, in the name of climate change, Honolulu officials have sued American energy companies for allegedly contributing to climate-related impacts. The Supreme Court needs to review the Honolulu lawsuit to ensure that there is not a patchwork of varying policies addressing climate and energy use across our nation, subject to the vagaries of individual states and municipalities. Based on existing U.S. law, climate change is a global issue that needs to be addressed federally – for national security and energy security. Given that fact, local courts applying state laws are incapable of addressing both climate challenges and national security in any sort of rationally holistic balance.
The Supreme Court is specifically contemplating reviewing Sunoco LP v. City and County of Honolulu, where the city and county of Honolulu are claiming that energy companies harmed the public by creating a public nuisance due to their contributions to climate change – and then misled the public about it. Without SCOTUS intervention, it could allow a single municipality to use state laws to manipulate energy policy for the country at-large. The high court must take this case in order to resolve the ongoing matter that has created dozens of identical lawsuits, and its attendant regulatory complexity, across the country. This is for two primary reasons.
First, it’s ludicrous that only American companies have been held liable for these climate impacts. Oddly, the plaintiffs are not suing egregious greenhouse gas “offenders” linked to carbon intensive activity such as PetroChina, Rosneft and Gazprom – run by America’s adversaries.
Second, there are crucial national security interests in the crosshairs of these cases. America needs our military, which in turn requires fossil fuels to properly function. As someone that has served our country for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, I know national security is of the utmost importance. Though some people don’t directly associate energy with national security, there is a significant correlation. The US military is the single largest purchaser and consumer of fuel in the United States, and without proper domestic production, we will be creating potential military energy deficits, which jeopardizes American security.
The points made in the amicus brief filed by retired General Richard B. Myers and retired Admiral Michael G. Mullen, two former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairs, from the Bush and Obama administrations, respectively. These officials outline the rationale for stopping these unhelpful lawsuits. Over a hundred years ago President William Howard Taft was president and he urged Congress to develop domestic oil sources; in a 1910 speech he said: “As not only the largest owner of oil lands, but as a prospective large consumer of oil by reason of the increasing use of fuel oil by the Navy, the Federal Government is directly concerned both in encouraging rational development and at the same time insuring the longest possible life to the oil supply.”
This same concept was seconded by other government leaders, who together with military officials have credited fossil fuels with strengthening our national security. For example, British Cabinet Minister Walter Long expressed in an address to the House of Commons in 1917: “Oil is probably more important at this moment than anything else. You may have men, munitions, and money, but if you do not have oil, … all your other advantages would be of comparatively little value.’ More recently, retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward has written, “energy manufacturers are answering President Biden’s directive to export natural gas to our allies in Europe. For example, the U.S. has been able to respond to Russia’s chokehold of the European energy market by increasing shipments of liquefied natural gas and crude oil by 137 percent and 38 percent, respectively.”
If climate lawsuits are successful, all of these national security benefits attributed to oil and gas would be seriously jeopardized. The real intention behind these lawsuits seems to be to stop domestic oil and gas production, which is obviously dangerous for the country.
It’s a bipartisan belief that, for national security’s sake, we need to ground our energy policy in promoting domestic oil and gas production. In 2006, the Bush administration opened leases of approximately 8 million additional acres of outer continental shelf lands in the Gulf of Mexico to “address high energy prices, protect American jobs, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” In 2010, President Obama “announc[ed] the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration,” explaining that “in order to sustain economic growth, produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.”
In practical terms, we need to confront climate change in a way that doesn’t risk our national security. A patchwork of state and local lawsuits attempting to apply state laws will not advance any sensible solutions. Climate change is a national – and global – issue; emissions are a uniquely federal concern, given all the national implications. I share most of the same concerns retired General Richard B. Myers and retired Admiral Michael G. Mullen emphasized in their amicus brief back in April. There is a serious possibility that this litigation and the broad relief it seeks –stopping the production of fossil fuels – will negatively impact national interests in fuel security and military readiness. Addressing climate change is vitally important, but it doesn’t trump national security so much that we can arrogantly ignore the needs of our military in keeping America safe.
Steve Bucci, who served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, is a visiting research fellow at The Heritage Foundation.