What happened: Climate nuisance lawsuits targeting oil companies, if successful, could potentially extend to other industries with high carbon emissions.

Tell me more: Other cases following a similarly opportunistic model motivated by potential financial gains could expand nuisance claims to utilities, steel, plastics, cement and ammonia industries.

• We’ve already seen nuisance litigation spread to car manufacturing, packed goods companies and beef producers.

Worth noting: Over two dozen states and local governments are currently pursuing billion-dollar climate-related lawsuits against oil companies.

• Fragmented state rulings could disrupt regulatory frameworks, complicate environmental policy and undermine economic and job considerations in policymaking.

In her own words: “Trial attorneys are not going to be limited by a view of what’s good policy as they’re filing lawsuits. They’re going to look at who has deep pockets or who is someone that I feel my law firm could prevail against.”—Gale Norton, former U.S. interior secretary

TLR Thoughts: A patchwork approach to climate policy through state-by-state lawsuits could devastate America’s energy industry, eliminate thousands of jobs and weaken national energy security. It’s only a matter of time until this expansive litigation playbook is used against other industries. Texas lawmakers should act to curb the overreach of public nuisance lawsuits before they disrupt more sectors of our economy.

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