Input Stories

In a significant victory for manufacturers, Maryland’s Supreme Court this week threw out three climate-change lawsuits against energy companies (POLITICO’s E&E News).

What’s going on: “In a ruling issued Tuesday, a majority of the court’s justices said the lawsuits brought by the cities of Baltimore and Annapolis, along with Anne Arundel County, are barred by federal law because the local governments seek to ‘regulate air emissions beyond their jurisdictional boundaries.’”

• In tossing out the suits, the court affirmed prior decisions by Baltimore City and Anne Arundel County courts.

The NAM’s role: The NAM filed an amicus brief in July 2025 urging the suits’ dismissal.

• “No state can reach outside its boundaries to govern, let alone impose liability on, the production, promotion and sale of fossil fuels—and the use of those fuels—in other states and countries that have no nexus to the state,” the NAM wrote in its brief.

The backdrop: The win comes in the run-up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s hearing next term of arguments in a similar climate suit from Colorado.

• The case brought by the city of Boulder and Boulder County likewise seeks to hold oil companies responsible for the impacts of climate change.
• In an October 2025 amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in that case, the NAM said that “the overwhelming majority of activities causing climate change cannot be subjected to any one state’s liability law.”

Our response: “As the [Maryland Supreme] Court made clear, managing these issues presents serious and complex public policy challenges that cannot and should not be solved through a patchwork of state law claims,” Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the NAM’s Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, told E&E News.

• “Public nuisance and other state laws are simply inapplicable to the production and sale of energy worldwide.”