The U.S. Supreme Court on June 16 agreed to hear energy companies’ bid to move into federal court several lawsuits filed by local Louisiana governments accusing them of harming the state’s coastline.

The court granted the petition in Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish without comment in an unsigned order. No justices dissented.

Starting in 2013, six parishes along the Gulf of America coast in Louisiana initiated 42 lawsuits accusing oil and gas companies of running afoul of a state permitting law, the State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act (SLCRMA) of 1978. The first case went to trial, and in April, a jury ordered Chevron to pay $744.6 million to Plaquemines Parish.

The Supreme Court is not expected to focus on the merits of the localities’ lawsuits, but instead will review whether procedural rules governing jurisdiction were followed by lower courts. Some companies prefer to litigate in federal court, which they consider to be more amenable to companies than are state courts.

The multiple lawsuits that the local governments filed in state court against the petitioners—several energy companies, including Chevron and Exxon Mobil Corp.—concern exploration and production work carried out in Louisiana’s coastal areas. The work was performed in oil fields under a refining contract that the companies had entered into with the federal government during World War II.

The companies argued that the 42 lawsuits should be removed to federal court because federal officials had a connection to the refining contract. Specifically, they argued that the cases should be transferred because 28 U.S. Code Section 1442(a)(1) gives federal courts jurisdiction, or authority, over civil lawsuits filed against “any person acting under [an] officer” of the United States “for or relating to any act under color of such office,” the companies’ petition filed on Jan. 29 said.

The cases were provisionally transferred to federal district courts. The localities then challenged the transfers, and federal district courts sent the cases back to state court, the petition said.

The companies appealed, and on May 29, 2024, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled against the companies and ordered that the lawsuits should remain in state court, concluding that the cases should not have been transferred under federal law.

The panel’s majority determined that the companies satisfied the “acting under” requirement of the federal statute but did not meet the “relating to” requirement. The “exploration and production activities” were not related to the refining activities performed under the federal contracts, the panel found.

The localities alleged in their lawsuits that the companies violated permitting requirements in SLCRMA, which became effective in 1980. However, the localities’ accusations pertain to activities that took place before SLCRMA was in effect. In addition, the state law contains a grandfather clause that provides that “uses legally commenced or established prior to the effective date of the coastal use permit program shall not require a coastal use permit,” the companies’ petition said.

The localities argue the companies are liable under the state law for activities that took place before the law was enacted because “most, if not all, of [the companies’] operations or activities … were not ‘lawfully commenced or established’ prior to the implementation” of a coastal zone management program.

The localities also argue that the oil production efforts that took place during World War II were illegal because they departed from industry practices “by dredging canals (instead of building overland roads), by using vertical drilling (instead of directional drilling), by using earthen pits at well heads (instead of steel tanks), by extracting too much oil, and by not building saltwater reinjection wells,” the petition said.

The localities said in their April 23 brief asking the Supreme Court not to take up the case that the federal government was not connected closely enough to the oil field activities to justify transferring the cases to federal court.

“There is no evidence that [the companies] sold crude oil to the government,” the brief stated.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear the case in its next term, which begins in October.

This article by Matthew Vadum appeared June 16, 2025, in The Epoch Times. It was updated June 17, 2025.