If you think gas prices are high now, just wait until the People’s Republic of Boulder gets to set them.
Today was the start of the Supreme Court new term, and with it came oral argument on Suncor v. Boulder County, a case on which much ink has been spilt on these pages. Having represented an amicus, the Coalition of Large Tribes, in support of Suncor, I attended the argument this morning. I have a few observations that I’ll put in individual posts.
First observation: Republican candidates, take note! The Democratic government of Boulder, Colo., is explicitly trying to raise gas prices, and at least Justice Sonia Sotomayor agrees with them. At one point during Boulder’s argument, Chief Justice John Roberts asked if Boulder was simply trying to evade what Justice Brett Kavanaugh described as a foursquare, on point line of cases placing emissions regulation in the purview of the federal government. Boulder responded that it was not and likened what it was doing to a “gas tax.” Yes, a gas tax. You know, the thing that raises the price of gas. This should come as no surprise; a former attorney for Boulder said the same thing last year.
This coincided well with previous questions from Justice Sotomayor, who questioned Suncor on the current posture of the case. In her view, there are so many defenses available to Suncor that the federal question at issue in the instant case (to borrow a Justice Jacksonism) is actually premature. The Supreme Court need not answer the question, she mused, just because Suncor and other oil companies “are spending money on litigation.” In other words, Justice Sotomayor is fine imposing a litigation tax on oil and gas consumers, thereby also increasing gas prices.
But this was all small potatoes compared with another answer Boulder gave the chief justice. When asked about what would happen if Boulder won and tens of thousands of municipalities proceeded to bring suit on similar theories, Boulder responded that such situations are not unusual in the law and cited the example of asbestos companies. Put aside the obvious distinctions between oil, which is the lifeblood of all modern industry, and asbestos. Know any asbestos companies? Of course not. They all went bankrupt. Indeed, Congress had to rewrite the bankruptcy code in order to facilitate it. Good luck trying to buy asbestos if, for whatever reason, you wanted to.
Of course, again, this should not surprise. It has been said before: The goal is to bankrupt the industry and run it in the interests of creditor governments. It’s what I have called “judicial collectivization.”
If you think gas prices are high now, just wait until the People’s Republic of Boulder gets to set them. Boulder said the quiet part out loud when it argued that the EPA’s regulatory power is limited to certain emission sources and does not extend to types of fuel or ideal “economic activity.” These decisions, you see, belong to a jury of hippies and University of Colorado students first and to a post-bankruptcy local soviet — sorry, creditor committee — later on.