Nonprofit amici supporting Boulder’s climate lawsuit against energy firms

In October, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a case arising from a 2018 lawsuit filed by Boulder, Colorado (both the city and county) against certain major energy companies. The underlying suit seeks damages for what those governments claim are the negative impacts of climate change. Fifteen standalone nonprofits have filed or joined Supreme Court amicus briefs supporting Boulder, and their most recently reported combined annual revenues exceed $436 million.

The Boulder Lawsuit

Boulder, Colorado is one of dozens of state and local governments which have sued major energy companies for billions of dollars over what the plaintiffs allege are the localized costs of climate change. A Colorado state court denied the defendant companies’ motion to dismiss, holding that the state-law nuisance, consumer protection, and other claims were not preempted by federal law. The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed, and the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari as to both the preemption question and a threshold jurisdictional question—the latter arising from a dispute over whether the litigation had reached a stage appropriate for U.S. Supreme Court review. The questions currently before the U.S. Supreme Court are as follows:

1. Whether federal law precludes state-law claims seeking relief for injuries allegedly caused by the effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions on the global climate.
2. Whether this Court has statutory and Article III jurisdiction to hear this case.

The Boulder lawsuit is part of a broader ideology-driven climate litigation campaign that seeks to achieve environmentalist political objectives outside of the democratic legislative process. It can be seen as a form of lawfare which has been rightly characterized by the energy company defendants as a “misuse of the legal system.” The Pacific Legal Foundation, in an amicus brief supporting those companies, succinctly explains Boulder’s “breathtakingly expansive” theory of liability and its consequences:

[B]ecause Petitioners produced and sold fossil fuels, they should be liable in state court for natural disasters that cannot be directly traced to them. That theory is not simply wrong as a matter of tort law but threatens to serve as a blueprint for dismantling America’s domestic energy sector through litigation. If accepted, every oil and gas producer, refiner, and distributor in the country faces the same exposure—enormous retroactive liability for unproven damages—in every jurisdiction where a weather event has caused municipal costs.

While the questions before the U.S. Supreme Court do not concern the substantive merits of Boulder’s lawsuit, a ruling on the federal preemption issue would have major implications for the entire climate litigation campaign, which has generally relied on state tort law. Recognizing the case’s importance, dozens of amicus (“friend of the court”) briefs have been filed by individuals, groups, and governmental entities with an interest in its outcome one way or the other. Given the fundamentally activist-driven nature of Boulder’s lawsuit—and of the slew of similar ones which have been filed nationwide—it is worth looking at the nonprofit advocacy groups which have submitted briefs in support of its position.

Amicus Briefs Supporting Boulder

Fifteen standalone nonprofits filed or joined amicus briefs in support of Boulder. Their combined total revenues in either 2024 or 2025 (using whichever fiscal or calendar year for which the most recent complete Form 990 tax filing was available for each respective group) was more than $436 million. This total excludes any nonprofit affiliates of the named amici, as well as groups whose personnel submitted briefs under their own names.

Interestingly, even though the underlying litigation is rooted in pure climate activism, only a third of the nonprofit amici were environmental activist groups.

Environmental Groups

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) submitted a brief arguing that developments in “attribution science” have supposedly made it possible to link specific sources of emissions (such as energy companies) to specific extreme weather events in a given locality. The NRDC is itself a prolific environmental litigant and one of the largest such activist groups in the country. In its 2025 fiscal year, the group’s flagship 501(c)(3) charitable arm reported almost $249 million in total revenue.

A second major national environmental activist group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, joined with six university professors in a brief which offered what the filers called “a fact-intensive historical account of what is known about [Boulder’s] claims of [the energy companies’] alleged fraud and deception and how that body of evidence supports the underlying claims.” The Union of Concerned Scientists is a 501(c)(3) charity which reported nearly $42 million in fiscal year 2024 revenues.

The Environmental Protection Network, an association of more than 750 former EPA staff and appointees, filed a brief alongside twenty former EPA officials in support of Boulder. The Environmental Protection Network is a 501(c)(3) charity that reported total 2024 revenues of over $3.8 million.

Another brief was filed by WHEN Justice, a relatively new 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit which received its tax-exempt status from the IRS in April 2025. WHEN Justice targets those it believes “put profit over people and planet” by utilizing “capital, media and the law to turn outrage into outcomes.” In 2024, it reported total revenues of $291,000, though the Edward Charles Foundation reported granting $2,843,000 to the group in its own 2025 fiscal year.

Finally, an Oregon-based public interest law firm called Our Children’s Trust submitted an amicus brief alongside several named individuals, including local youth from Boulder. The brief’s stated purpose was “to assist the Court in understanding how children’s health is deteriorating from fossil fuel pollution, and through that lens, the import of state sovereign authority and duty over fossil fuel pollution-related injuries.” Our Children’s Trust operates as a 501(c)(3) charity, and reported just under $3.9 million in 2024 revenues.

Non-Environmental Groups

Some of the amicus briefs filed by non-environmental groups nevertheless came from natural directions. Foremost among these would probably be the American Association for Justice, whose brief supporting Boulder made the eyebrow-raising assertion that “Respondents’ causes of action will not result in ruinous liability for the fossil fuel industry.” The American Association for Justice is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit whose member attorneys principally represent the plaintiff in civil litigation or the defendant in criminal cases—it is the “lawsuit lobby” which advocates for the professional interests of America’s trial lawyers. In its fiscal year 2025, the American Association for Justice reported more than $34.5 million in total revenues.

Similarly, the National Association of Counties (a 501(c)(4) nonprofit with 2024 revenues of $28.9 million), the National League of Cities (a 501(c)(4) with 2024 revenues of $25.5 million), and the International Municipal Lawyers Association (a 501(c)(3) with 2025 revenues of $2.3 million), filed a brief supporting Boulder on both the jurisdictional question and on the underlying merits, writing that when “faced with deceptive and injurious conduct, local governments have the responsibility to take action despite the efforts of wrongdoers to divert and delay.” All three groups—which represent the interests of their eponymous constituents—are founding members of the Local Government Legal Center, a coalition which was established in 2023 to advocate for those interests at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence were perhaps more unexpected amici. They filed a joint brief connecting climate lawsuits to their own litigation efforts “against gun manufacturers for certain conduct alleged to constitute a public nuisance at common law.” Brady and Giffords are two of the three most prominent mainline gun control advocacy groups in the country (the third being the enormous Michael Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety, which did not join the brief). The Brady Center is a 501(c)(3) which reported $17.8 million total revenues in its 2025 fiscal year, while the Giffords Law Center—also a 501(c)(3)—reported more than $11.4 million in 2024.

The 501(c)(4) activist group Public Citizen, which reported fiscal year 2024 revenues of $8.39 million, submitted a brief arguing against federal preemption. Two 501(c)(3)s—the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (2024 revenues: $5.4 million) and the National Native Law Students Association (fiscal year 2025 revenues: $71,977) joined a brief with thirteen federally recognized American Indian tribes and nine law professors, writing that “reversal of the decision below would severely handicap tribal governments as they struggle to deal with the consequences of the climate crisis.” Another brief supporting Boulder was filed by the Constitutional Accountability Center, a 501(c)(3) which is “dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history,” and which had total revenues of more than $2.9 million in 2024.

Other Briefs

A couple of other amicus briefs, which were not filed by nonprofits, might nevertheless be worth mentioning in that context. Ten different cities and counties which have filed their own similar climate lawsuits against energy companies joined as amici supporting Boulder, in a brief submitted by their counsel Sher Edling. This is notable, as Sher Edling has received $16 million worth of combined charitable grants from the New Venture Fund and the Resources Legacy Fund to support the firm’s climate litigation work.

Another amicus brief supporting Boulder on the federal preemption issue was submitted by ninety Democratic-caucusing members of Congress, led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). That brief also took aim at the amici supporting the energy companies, baselessly accusing them in a footnote of being “part of an industry-driven project to evade accountability for all conduct related to their businesses,” and dismissing organizations as influential and programmatically diverse as the Manhattan Institute, the Pacific Legal Foundation, Advancing American Freedom, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as little more than fossil fuel “industry front groups.” It is unclear how this charge—even if it were true—would be relevant to informing the Supreme Court’s analysis.

A decision in the Suncor Energy case—whether on jurisdictional or preemption grounds—is expected in 2027.