The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Oct. 5 regarding a lawsuit from Boulder, Colorado, demanding compensation from energy companies for local weather damage allegedly caused by global greenhouse gas emissions.
The question before the court, however, is not whether global warming theories hold water. It’s whether local courts throughout the United States should have the authority to extract billions of dollars from energy companies for damage allegedly caused by global emissions.
The energy companies argue that giving such power to local courts would allow municipalities to effectively impose a massive nationwide carbon tax with the potential to bankrupt the U.S. energy industry. …