On July 15, 2025, the Legal Center filed an amicus brief urging the Maryland Supreme Court to affirm a lower court’s determination that Baltimore, Annapolis and Anne Arundel County’s climate change litigation against energy manufacturers is preempted by federal law. We argued that the subject matter and remedies sought through this litigation are inherently national, as well as legislative and regulatory in nature, and that such complex policy matters should not be driven by individual state judges in individual state courtrooms applying (or misapplying) various state liability laws.
Happily, on March 24, 2026, the Maryland Supreme Court agreed. The court unanimously held that claims alleging harm from global climate change are matters of federal law--not state law. Specifically, it found that the plaintiffs’ claims for public and private nuisance, trespass, strict liability and negligent failure to warn are preempted by the Clean Air Act, which bars all state law claims relating to alleged interstate pollution.