Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from a major climate lawsuit against oil companies just days before arguments, after months of pressure from environmental groups.
Justice Samuel Alito will not take part in Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a closely watched dispute set for oral argument on October 5 as the high court opens its new term. The recusal decision landed on Monday and leaves eight justices to decide the case.
Daily Mail reported that Alito stepped aside over an apparent conflict of interest tied to his stock holdings in several fossil fuel companies. He had resisted pressure from environmental groups for months before the move.
The case tests whether federal law blocks state-law claims seeking damages from greenhouse gas emissions. Boulder County officials brought the suit against energy firms; a ruling could shape how dozens of similar state and local lawsuits against fossil fuel companies proceed.
Reuters reported that Alito owns shares in oil and gas companies including ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, but not in the defendants in this dispute, Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy. He previously stepped aside in related 2023 litigation for the same reason.
Supreme Court clerk Scott Harris notified the parties in plain terms.
Harris wrote:
"I am writing to inform the parties that Justice Alito has determined that he will not continue to participate in this case."
Alito has recused before from other matters involving oil and gas companies because of those holdings. The pattern is consistent: when his portfolio touches the industry at issue, he sits out.
With Alito out, eight justices remain. How the recusal affects the court’s 6-3 conservative majority in this matter is unclear. The Trump administration supports the oil companies’ position that federal law should control and bar these state-law damage claims.
Progressive localities have used state courts and tort theories to target energy producers over climate policy. This Boulder case is one of many. The October 5 argument is the first of the new term, and the outcome will signal whether those suits can keep moving or face a federal-law barrier.
Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas have reliably sided with President Trump on most of the court’s most closely watched cases in Trump’s second term. Trump has criticized justices, including his own nominees, when they blocked or slowed major priorities. How he will view this recusal is not yet known.
Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth used the moment to push a broader transparency agenda. Only Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson routinely explain their recusals. Other justices are not required to.
Roth said in a statement to the Daily Mail that Alito’s decision “is a prime example of why Supreme Court justices should be required to explain their recusals.”
He went further:
"Is Justice Alito stepping aside because his clerks belatedly found a connection between this case and the companies whose shares he owns? Or is this the rare instance where a justice believes that open questions about his impartiality demand recusal?"
Roth added:
"The Court's lack of transparency and nonexistent rules governing the justices' papers mean we may never know."
Those are advocacy questions, not findings. What the record shows is simpler: Alito owns energy stocks, the case targets energy companies over climate liability, he had sat out similar matters before, and he is sitting this one out as well.
Environmental groups spent months demanding the recusal. Alito did not yield on their timetable. He acted when the conflict standard, as he applied it, called for it, days before argument, not in response to a press release.
That sequence matters. Justices are not obliged to clear every activist demand. They are obliged to avoid hearing cases where their financial interests create an apparent conflict. Alito’s prior recusals from oil-and-gas matters show he has applied that line before. He applied it again here.
The remaining eight justices will hear whether Boulder and similar plaintiffs can keep using state tort law to impose climate damages on energy producers, or whether federal law already occupies the field. The companies want the suits stopped. The localities want them to proceed. The administration backs the companies.
No opinion has been issued. No vote count is public. The only concrete change is the bench: eight justices instead of nine, with Alito out because of stock he holds in the broader sector.
When a justice owns shares that create a real conflict, stepping aside is the responsible course, and it should not take a months-long activist campaign to make that basic ethics rule look like news.
