The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Climate lawsuits could quietly add $1,465 to your family’s annual bills, new analysis warns. Supreme Court could mitigate.

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BS BULLETIN:

  • A new analysis estimates successful climate lawsuits and “superfund” measures could ultimately cost the average American household about $1,465 more per year.
  • Researchers estimate the potential hit could include roughly 41 cents more per gallon of gasoline and an 8.6 percent increase in residential electricity rates.
  • The estimate assumes a sweeping “full-success” scenario for more than 300 lawsuits and other climate measures examined — not that every case will succeed.

There may be a very expensive line item hiding inside America’s growing climate-lawfare campaign.

A new analysis from Heritage Foundation chief economist E.J. Antoni and Power The Future founder Daniel Turner estimates that successful climate lawsuits and state “superfund” measures targeting oil and gas companies could eventually cost the average American household about $1,465 a year.

The theory is simple: enormous costs imposed on energy producers don’t necessarily stay with energy producers. They can work their way down to the people buying gasoline, heating their homes and paying electric bills.

The analysis estimates energy companies could face an additional $194 billion in annual costs if the legal efforts examined were fully successful. According to the researchers’ calculations, that could translate into approximately 41 cents more for a gallon of gasoline and an 8.6 percent increase in residential electricity rates.

That’s a substantial price tag for litigation most Americans probably aren’t following.

The report examined more than 300 pending lawsuits, three existing state climate “superfund” laws, 12 state legislative proposals and one federal bill.

The $1,465 figure represents what the researchers call a “full-success scenario” in which all of the measures they analyzed prevail. It is not a prediction that every lawsuit will succeed or that households are about to receive a $1,465 climate-litigation bill.

And some of these efforts are already encountering resistance in court. New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, for example, was blocked by a federal judge in August. An even bigger fight is headed for the Supreme Court.

The justices are preparing to consider a Colorado case involving Suncor Energy that could help determine whether state and local governments can pursue certain climate claims against fossil-fuel companies in state courts.

That ruling could have consequences far beyond Colorado.

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