Alito steps aside from major Supreme Court climate case after scrutiny over oil stock holdings

Justice Samuel Alito will not take part in the Supreme Court's most consequential climate change case of the term, the court's clerk told lawyers in both parties in a one-sentence letter issued Monday, a reversal that came after months of pressure over Alito's personal stock holdings in oil companies with a direct financial stake in the outcome.

The case, Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, is scheduled for oral argument on October 5, the opening day of the court's new term, and asks the justices to decide whether Boulder's decade-long effort to hold Exxon Mobil and Suncor liable in state court for climate change damage can proceed. The letter from Supreme Court Clerk Scott Harris states only that "Justice Alito has determined that he will not continue to participate in this case," offering no explanation. But the timing follows a string of public disclosures tying Alito's personal investments to companies with a direct interest in the case's outcome.

What the letter changes

Alito does not own stock in Exxon Mobil or Suncor, the two companies being sued. His most recent financial disclosure, covering 2025, shows he holds stock worth up to $15,000 in ConocoPhillips and between $15,001 and $50,000 in Phillips 66, along with positions in several other energy firms. Neither company is a party to the Boulder case, but both face nearly identical climate liability suits in other jurisdictions, and legal analysts have said a ruling that shields Exxon and Suncor from state tort claims would likely extend the same protection to ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66 and the rest of the industry.

That distinction — indirect rather than direct financial interest — is why the court's public information office told reporters earlier this year that recusal was not legally required. A spokeswoman said in May that the court's legal counsel had reviewed the matter and concluded Alito had no disqualifying interest. Monday's letter reverses that position without acknowledging it did so.

With Alito stepping aside, the case will be heard and decided by eight justices. A 4-4 split would leave the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling in place, allowing Boulder's lawsuit to proceed toward trial, without setting a binding nationwide precedent for the roughly two dozen similar suits pending against oil companies in other states.

How the case reached the Supreme Court

The City and County of Boulder sued Exxon Mobil and three Suncor Energy entities in Colorado state court in 2018, arguing that the companies' decades of fossil fuel production, marketing and sale drove climate change while the companies concealed or downplayed the risks. Boulder is seeking damages to cover the cost of adapting to wildfires, flooding and extreme heat that it attributes in part to the companies' conduct, according to the official case summary published by Boulder County.

The case spent close to eight years in procedural fights before reaching trial. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in May 2025 that federal law does not preempt Boulder's state-law claims, clearing the way for the case to proceed. Exxon and Suncor appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed in February 2026 to hear the case, teeing up a ruling that could either allow Boulder's suit and others like it to go to trial or shut them down before they get there. Industry lawyers argue that regulating greenhouse gas emissions is a federal responsibility under the Clean Air Act and that letting individual states apply their own tort law to global emissions would create an unworkable patchwork of liability.

Who raised the recusal question

Pressure on Alito to step aside built for months, driven largely by the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which had called on him to withdraw from the case since the spring. The group escalated its campaign on September 17, when it published research asserting that ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66 had separately warned shareholders for years that climate deception lawsuits like Boulder's posed a "material risk" to their businesses, according to a Consumer Watchdog research release. The group argued that Alito, as an investor in those companies, had been on notice that a favorable outcome in Suncor v. Boulder would directly benefit his own portfolio, even without owning stock in the named defendants.

Alito had previously recused himself from an earlier petition in litigation involving some of the same companies, which watchdog groups cited as evidence that his position had already shifted once before the court's public information office insisted in May that recusal was unnecessary this time.

"Justice Alito's recusal from Suncor v. Boulder is the right decision, and one he should have made from the start," said Alexandra Nagy, organizing director at Consumer Watchdog.

Stephen Gillers, an emeritus law professor at New York University who studies judicial ethics, cautioned that the reasoning behind Supreme Court recusals is rarely made public. "Recusal on the Supreme Court, or indeed recusal even on lower courts, is often a black box," Gillers said, noting that justices are not required to explain their decisions and the court has no binding recusal rule enforced by any outside body.

Who is affected

The immediate parties are Boulder city and county officials, who have pushed the case since 2018, and Exxon Mobil and Suncor, which face potential liability running into the billions of dollars if the suit proceeds to trial and succeeds. Beyond Colorado, the ruling will shape climate liability litigation nationwide. Similar suits are pending in California, Hawaii, New York, Rhode Island and other states against major oil producers, and a Supreme Court decision on preemption would likely apply to most or all of them. Energy companies not directly named in the Boulder case, including ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, have told their own shareholders that the litigation carries meaningful financial risk, which is part of why Alito's holdings in those firms drew scrutiny in the first place.

What happens next

Oral argument remains scheduled for October 5 before the eight remaining justices. The court will weigh two questions: whether federal law and the Constitution preempt Boulder's state tort claims, and whether the case is procedurally premature. A decision is not expected until sometime in the court's next term, which runs into the summer of 2027. Because a tie leaves the lower court's ruling intact without setting a nationwide precedent, a 4-4 outcome would keep Boulder's case alive in Colorado while leaving the broader legal question — whether any state can sue oil companies over global emissions — unresolved for the other pending suits around the country.