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ARTICLE · 06 MARCH 2024

Energy & Sustainability Litigation Updates — March 2024

Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
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Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.

Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.

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The US Chamber of Commerce, in combination with a number of other organized business interests, recently filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to invalidate two of the climate disclosure...

United StatesEnvironment
Jacob Hupart
Jacob Hupart
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The US Chamber of Commerce, in combination with a number of other organized business interests, recently filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to invalidate two of the climate disclosure laws enacted by California last fall. Specifically, the lawsuit claims that these two laws — S.B. 253 and S.B. 261, which require large corporations to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and measures taken to address climate-related risk — violate the First Amendment by compelling speech, are pre-empted by federal law (i.e., the Clean Air Act), and violate the Dormant Commerce Clause due to their extraterritorial regulatory effect.

Bluntly, this lawsuit was wholly expected. California's climate disclosure laws are the most stringent and far-reaching in the United States, and will impose a significant regulatory burden on large companies doing business in California. Perhaps more importantly, California is often considered the vanguard of climate-related legislation and

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