Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America v. James

Four trade associations and business groups filed a complaint in the federal district court for the Southern District of New York challenging New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act (the Act), which the plaintiffs alleged was “a plainly unconstitutional law imposing $75 billion in strict liability on a targeted group of energy companies for their lawful conduct and the lawful conduct of third parties overwhelmingly undertaken in other jurisdictions.” The complaint alleged that the law is intended to impose strict liability for alleged impacts of climate change based on energy companies’ “purported shares of global, lawful greenhouse gas emissions based on completely unsubstantiated ‘attribution science.’” The plaintiffs asserted that the Act was precluded by the U.S. Constitution and federal law on multiple grounds, including because federal law controls liability for harms arising from interstate greenhouse gas emissions and because “the inherent structure of the Constitution of the United States recognizes the equal sovereignty afforded to all States.” They also asserted that the Clean Air Act preempts the Act and that the Act violates the Due Process Clause, the dormant Commerce Clause, the foreign Commerce Clause, the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment, and the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. A separate <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/west-virginia-v-james/">challenge</a> to the Act by 22 states was already pending in the Northern District of New York.