County of Santa Cruz v. Chevron Corp.

The defendants in the Santa Cruz lawsuits removed those cases to federal court on January 19, 2018. The defendants in the Santa Cruz cases asserted that the plaintiffs’ claims implicated “uniquely federal interests” and were governed by federal common law. The defedants also asserted that the claims “attack federal policy decisions and threaten to upset longstanding federal-state relations, second-guess policy decisions made by Congress and the Executive Branch, and skew divisions of responsibility set forth in federal statutes and the United States Constitution” and therefore necessarily raised substantial and disputed questions of federal law. In addition, the defendants contended that the Clean Air Act completely preempted the claims and that the federal court had jurisdiction pursuant to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the federal officer removal statute, the federal enclave doctrine, and the bankruptcy removal statute.