AUSTIN –Attorney General Ken Paxton has joined a multistate amicus brief in the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals, in support of the defendant energy companies in Delaware v. BP America, Inc.
According to a press release, Delaware’s common law public-nuisance claim, which alleges that energy companies knowingly promoted the use of fossil fuels that cause global warming, is in reality a disguised effort to regulate interstate pollution – which the Constitution reserves to federal common law, not state law.
The brief argues that the defendant energy companies should be permitted to remove the case to federal court and to have the claim decided under federal common law. To do otherwise would undermine federalism and democracy by ceding to Delaware courts the power to set climate-change policy for the entire country. In the context of current global challenges, moreover, it is of paramount importance that we preserve and promote U.S. energy production rather than cause our country to rely further on foreign imports.