A New Jersey state judge on February 5, 2025 threw out the Garden State’s lawsuit accusing fossil fuel companies of concealing the climate change risks of their products, finding the state’s claims are preempted by federal law. State Superior Court Judge Douglas Hurd in Mercer County ordered the state’s lawsuit dismissed Wednesday. Hurd wrote in his opinion that only federal law can govern the claims made by New Jersey, agreeing with arguments made by the oil companies’ lawyers.
“Only federal law can govern Plaintiffs’ interstate and international emissions claims because ‘the basic scheme of the Constitution so demands,’” Hurd wrote in his opinion. “Therefore, Plaintiffs’ complaint is hereby dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim.”
The reasoning is that these types of claims are precluded and preempted by federal law and must be dismissed under clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent where the high court ruled that under the federal Clean Air Act, only the Environmental Protection Agency can set air pollution rules. (American Electric Power Co., Inc., et al. v. Connecticut et al., 564 U.S.13 (2011).
A few weeks earlier, NY State Supreme Court Justice Anar Patel wrote in her Jan. 14 decision in City of New York v Exxon Mobil, Corp., et al, Index no. 451071/2021 (January 14, 2025) that New York City had failed to demonstrate that the defendants named in its suit — ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and the American Petroleum Institute — had deceived consumers about the climate impact of their fossil fuel products. Patel’s dismissal stated that the city could not claim New Yorkers were “climate conscious” and sensitive to the connection between fossil fuels and climate change, but were “misled” by oil and gas companies’ failure to disclose how their fossil fuel products contributed to it.