Justice Samuel Alito has recused himself from a major Supreme Court climate case against oil companies just days before arguments, after months of resisting pressure from environmental groups.
Daily Mail reported that the conservative justice will not take part in Suncor Energy vs. County Commissioners of Boulder County, leaving eight justices to hear a dispute over state and local efforts to sue fossil fuel companies over climate change.
The recusal landed on Monday. Oral arguments are set for October 5, the first case of the new term, and the sudden move came after Alito had for months pushed back against calls from environmental groups to step aside.
Clerk of the Court Scott Harris told the parties that Alito “has determined that he will not continue to participate in this case.” No public explanation followed.
Reuters reported that the October 5 hearing involves Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy’s bid to stop a climate liability lawsuit from Boulder, Colorado. Alito owns stock in other oil and gas firms, including ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, but not the two companies in this dispute.
He had initially declined calls from watchdog and environmental groups to recuse. He did step aside at an earlier stage of related litigation in 2023. He has also recused before from other oil and gas cases because of stock holdings.
That pattern matters. The justice has handled energy-stock conflicts by leaving the bench when the connection was clear. This time the court gave no reason for the change, and the notice arrived less than a week before argument.
Breitbart noted that groups had raised concerns over his oil and gas holdings and over prior inconsistent recusals, yet Alito had earlier received advice that recusal was not required. The letter from Harris simply said he “will not continue to participate” in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County.
Readers who follow the Court already know Justice Alito has made plain he intends to remain on the bench. A last-minute recusal in a high-profile energy case still reshapes the panel that will decide it.
The case tests whether localities can use state-law tort claims against oil and gas companies over alleged contributions to climate change. A ruling could affect how dozens of state and local lawsuits against fossil fuel companies move forward.
Fox News reported that Supreme Court clerk Scott Harris informed the parties’ lawyers of the recusal in a Monday letter. The unexpected step leaves the Court without its full complement as it weighs Boulder’s theory of liability.
Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, put the practical stakes in plain terms. “Justice Alito does not take his duty to sit lightly. We do not know why he recused himself, as the reason has not been made public, but I do not expect his recusal to ultimately change the outcome of Suncor v. Boulder,” she said.
O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, added a separate concern: “It doesn’t help the court when they don’t have their full complement.”
The Court’s 6-3 conservative majority is now incomplete for this argument. How the recusal lands on the final vote remains unclear. What is clear is that the fight over climate tort suits will proceed with one fewer conservative vote in the room.
Separate recent rulings have shown how a full bench can settle major disputes, including when the Supreme Court cleared a mail-ballot executive order in a 6-3 decision. Missing a justice changes the math even when the underlying legal question stays the same.
The Washington Examiner reported that Alito faced pressure from left-wing groups to recuse and offered no explanation when he stepped away a week before arguments. Clerk Scott Harris’s letter confirmed only that the justice had determined he would not continue to participate.
Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth seized on the silence. In a statement, Roth said the decision “is a prime example of why Supreme Court justices should be required to explain their recusals.”
"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 went further: “The Court’s lack of transparency and nonexistent rules governing the justices’ papers mean we may never know.” Only Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson currently explain their recusals.
Most justices do not issue written reasons when they leave a case. That long-standing practice now sits next to a coordinated push from environmental groups that spent months demanding Alito’s exit. The groups got the result they wanted. The public still does not have the Court’s own account of why.
Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas have reliably sided together on many of the Court’s most closely watched cases in President Donald Trump’s second term. Thomas’s own record remains a steady point of interest for Court watchers, including in personal accounts such as when Justice Clarence Thomas recalled a promise he made after losing his grandparents.
Boulder’s case is not a routine damages suit. It asks the Supreme Court to bless the use of state tort law against national energy producers for global climate effects. Oil and gas companies argue that kind of claim belongs in Congress and federal regulation, not in county courthouses picking defendants.
If the Court allows those suits to proceed, dozens of similar actions already filed by states and cities gain new life. If it shuts them down, the activist model of climate litigation through tort law takes a hard hit. Either way, the decision will reach far past Boulder County.
Alito’s stock holdings in ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 made him a target for recusal demands even though those firms are not parties here. He has stepped away from oil and gas matters before when his portfolio created a direct conflict. The latest move fits that history more than it upends it, even if the timing surprised the parties.
Chief Justice John Roberts has kept the Court’s institutional machinery moving through other high-stakes fights this term, including when Chief Justice Roberts allowed a major White House construction project to keep going. A full nine-justice bench remains the normal expectation for cases of national weight. This one will not have it.
The recusal does not decide whether Boulder’s climate tort theory is lawful. It does not sell Alito’s shares or revise the Court’s ethics guidance. It removes one conservative vote from a case environmental groups have treated as a signature fight against fossil fuel producers.
Severino’s assessment is the one conservatives will watch: the outcome is still unlikely to flip. Skinner’s point stands beside it. A short-handed Court is a weaker Court, and last-minute exits invite exactly the transparency attacks Roth and others are already making.
President Trump has criticized justices, including his own nominees, when they have blocked or slowed major policy priorities. How he will view this recusal is not yet clear. The legal question before the eight remaining justices is clearer: who gets to police climate policy, elected lawmakers or county tort suits aimed at energy companies.
For months Alito refused the pressure campaign. On Monday he left the case anyway, with no written explanation and with arguments only days away. The climate docket moves forward. The demand for mandatory recusal statements will move with it.
Conservative majorities still hold the Court. Energy producers still face a wave of state and local climate suits. And justices who own lawful investments will keep drawing fire from groups that want the bench reshaped by ethics process as much as by votes.
When the left cannot win the argument on the law, it tries to win it by emptying the chair, and then calls the empty chair a scandal.