Justice Samuel Alito will no longer hear a major climate case against ExxonMobil after activists demanded he recuse over oil stock holdings.
A letter dated Monday told lawyers in the dispute that the conservative justice “has determined that he will not continue to participate in this case,” with no reason given, NBC News reported.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next week in the fight over a Colorado lawsuit brought by the city and county of Boulder, which seeks damages from oil companies for climate-change impacts. ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy want that case thrown out.
Alito’s exit is a clear break from his earlier stance. Court officials had already told reporters that recusal was not required. Left-leaning groups kept pushing anyway. The result could leave the court tied 4-4 and the core legal questions unresolved.
Alito does not own stock in ExxonMobil or Suncor. His financial disclosure does list holdings in ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, plus five other energy-sector firms.
Activists argued those companies could benefit if the high court blocks cases like Boulder’s. Consumer Watchdog pointed earlier this month to shareholder disclosures from ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 that warned about risks from climate lawsuits.
In May, a court spokeswoman told NBC News that Alito “does not have a financial interest in any party” in the case. She said the court’s legal counsel advised that “his recusal is not required.”
Before that, Alito’s position, conveyed through the court, was that he did not need to step aside. The Monday letter reverses that course without explaining why.
"Justice Alito has determined that he will not continue to participate in this case,"
the letter to counsel stated.
This is not Alito’s first move to sit out related litigation. In 2023, he recused when the Supreme Court turned away an appeal from the companies in the Colorado case.
That same day, the court rejected appeals in similar cases involving other firms, including ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66. Alito did not take part in those either.
A court spokesman later said Alito had “inadvertently recused” in the earlier Colorado matter. The May statement still maintained he had no financial interest in any party and that counsel saw no duty to step aside from the current case.
He is stepping aside now all the same.
Alexandra Nagy, organizing director at Consumer Watchdog, praised the decision in terms that underscored the pressure campaign.
"Justice Alito’s recusal... is the right decision, and one he should have made from the start,"
Nagy said.
Oil and gas companies have a lot riding on the outcome. Industry hopes for a broad ruling that would stop cases like Boulder’s from moving ahead in state courts, and, in the process, spare firms from potentially paying out billions in damages.
With Alito gone, a 4-4 split is on the table. That would leave major legal issues hanging. It would also deny the clarity both sides say they want.
The court still holds a 6-3 conservative majority when all justices sit. One absence changes the math in a hurry.
Conservatives have pressed their own recusal demands. Some called for liberal Justice Elena Kagan to step aside over a chapter on climate change that appeared in, then was removed from, a reference manual for judges.
Kagan wrote a brief foreword to that manual. She recently told lawmakers she never read the chapter in question.
The contrast is plain. Alito faced months of public pressure over stock he does not hold in the named parties, after court counsel said he could stay. He is out. The Kagan dispute has not produced the same result.
A Supreme Court spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for further comment on Alito’s latest decision.
When activist groups can force a justice off a case the court’s own lawyers said he could hear, the precedent is not restraint. It is leverage, and climate litigants just used it.
