Energy & Environment

The Litigation Center supports businesses and market-based innovation as integral to confronting today’s environmental challenges. The Litigation Center represents the Chamber as party or amicus in a wide range of cases raising energy, environmental, and natural-resources issues. In both federal and state courts, the Litigation Center participates in cases where regulators, advocacy groups, municipalities, and plaintiffs’ lawyers seek to advance improper interpretations of statutes and regulations, and of common-law theories and doctrines that jeopardize the operations of responsible businesses and unreasonably impair beneficial economic activity. In recent years, we have been especially active in public nuisance and climate tort cases.

Recent Activity

Results are sorted by the date of most recent activity.

FERC v. Vitol, Inc.

August 5, 2022

U.S. Chamber files amicus brief urging Ninth Circuit to hold the five-year statute of limitations provided by 28 U.S.C. § 2462 does not give the agency (1) five years to issue an initial...

California State Water Resources Control Board v. FERC

August 4, 2022

Ninth Circuit vacates Federal Energy Regulatory Commission orders concluding that California agency had waived its authority under section 401 of the Clean Water Act to grant or deny water quality...

Friends of the Earth v. Haaland

June 13, 2022

U.S. Chamber files amicus brief urging D.C. Circuit to reverse vacatur of offshore oil lease and emphasizing the disruptive consequences of vacatur to the Nation’s economy and energy security.

State of Rhode Island v. Shell Oil Products Co., LLC

May 23, 2022

First Circuit affirms remand of climate nuisance action to state court, holding that none of the grounds for removal gives rise to federal removal jurisdiction. The U.S. Chamber filed an amicus...

Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe v. Enbridge Energy Co., Inc.

May 10, 2022

U.S. Chamber files coalition amicus brief highlighting the adverse economic consequences of shutting down an interstate, cross-border petroleum pipeline.

Sackett v. EPA

April 18, 2022

U.S. Chamber files amicus brief urging U.S. Supreme Court to adopt the plurality opinion’s test in Rapanos v. United States (2006) and resolve entrenched split of authority over the...

In re 3M Company

March 28, 2022

U.S. Chamber files coalition amicus brief urging Sixth Circuit to review certification of 23(b)(2) injunctive class seeking an investigative study of health effects of PFAS chemicals and...

Delaware v. BP America Inc.

March 22, 2022

U.S. Chamber files amicus brief arguing that federal common law claims regarding the effects of global climate change are removable to federal court even if the plaintiff fails to acknowledge the...

Plaquemines Parish v. Chevron USA, Inc.

March 21, 2022

U.S. Chamber files amicus brief arguing that district court had federal removal jurisdiction over litigation against energy companies for conduct connected to their actions under federal direction...

Enbridge Energy Ltd. v. Whitmer

March 14, 2022

U.S. Chamber files coalition amicus brief urging the court to exercise jurisdiction under Ex parte Young and to review state officials’ shutdown order for an interstate, cross-border petroleum...