Rhode Island v. Shell Oil Products Co.

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Two amicus briefs were filed in support of fossil fuel companies’ petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of the remand order in Rhode Island’s climate case. Energy Policy Advocates contended that records it had obtained under the Rhode Island Access to Public Records Act showed that the lawsuit was an improper attempt to make climate change policy through the courts.

In December 2020, fossil fuel companies filed a petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of the First Circuit's decision affirming affirming the remand order in the climate change case brought by Rhode Island. The companies requested that the petition be held pending the outcome of the Baltimore case since their petition raises the same jurisdictional issue.

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The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court order remanding Rhode Island’s climate change case against energy companies to state court. The First Circuit noted that this was its “second pass at a climate-change case that requires us to explore the mind-numbing complexities of federal removal jurisdiction.” In 2021, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the First Circuit’s 2020 affirmance of the remand order after determining in the <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/mayor-city-council-of-baltimore-v-bp-plc/">Baltimore</a> case that federal appellate courts have jurisdiction to consider appeals on all grounds for removal when the federal-officer removal statute is one basis for removal. In reviewing the other grounds for removal in Rhode Island’s case, the First Circuit “lean[ed] hard on our sibling circuits’ analyses in comparable climate-change cases,” and agreed with the other courts’ conclusions that there was no federal jurisdiction over Rhode Island’s claims, which the court characterized as seeking to hold the companies liable for climate change-related harms allegedly caused by the companies “deliberately misrepresenting the dangers they knew would arise from their deceptive hyping of fossil fuels.” First, the First Circuit found that even if the well-pleaded complaint rule did not prevent the court from finding that Rhode Island’s state-law claims were necessarily federal common law claims, the companies “cannot premise removal on a federal common law that no longer exists.” The First Circuit said that even if control of interstate pollution, promotion of energy independence, and negotiation of treaties addressing climate change were “uniquely federal interests,” the companies did not satisfy the second requirement for creating federal common law—that there be a “significant conflict … between some federal policy or interest and the use of state law.” The First Circuit also said that even if the companies had not failed to make a showing of a significant conflict, statutes—the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act—had displaced any federal common law that previously existed. Second, the First Circuit found that there was no Grable jurisdiction because the companies did not establish that a federal issue was a necessary element of any of Rhode Island’s state-law claims. Third, the First Circuit rejected the argument that the Clean Air Act completely preempted Rhode Island’s claims. Fourth, the court found that federal enclave jurisdiction did not apply since Rhode Island specifically avoided seeking relief for alleged damages to federal lands and because “some of the pertinent events … occurred outside federal enclaves.” Fifth, the First Circuit found that the companies failed to establish that Rhode Island’s claims satisfied the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act’s jurisdiction requirement that cases arise “in connection with” an operation conducted on the Outer Continental Shelf. Sixth, the First Circuit found that admiralty jurisdiction did not exist because Rhode Island did not allege that a vessel caused its land-based injuries. Lastly, the First Circuit rejected the companies’ invocation of bankruptcy jurisdiction based on Rhode Island’s claims’ relationship to the bankruptcy case of Texaco Inc. or other bankruptcy matters of predecessors, subsidiaries, and affiliates.