CCL President wrote and filed a brief arguing that no conception of federal common law justified removal of the State of Rhode Island's case against major oil producers for the in-state consequences of their misrepresentations about fossil fuels. The State had sued the companies on grounds of misrepresentations in state court on state causes of action, but the defendants had removed the case to federal court.

     In this second visit to the First Circuit, which originally held that the oil companies had no claim to federal jurisdiction by asserting that they had done what they were accused of at the direction of the federal government, the appellate court is reviewing other claimed bases for federal-court jurisdiction. This time around, the defendants rely heavily on a claim that because climate change is a global issue, it requires the courts to apply federal common law, rather than state law.

     The amicus brief filed today on behalf of the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the International Municipal Lawyers Association, argued that whatever federal common law may have once existed was displaced by the Clean Air Act, which gives the states a role in combating the local effects of air pollution. States, it further argues, have a right to bring state causes of action in state court, just as any other plaintiff does, subject to the defendants' claims of ordinary preemption, which provides no right to remove a case to federal court.