Local and state governments trying to make oil and gas companies financially liable for climate change won a pair of victories over the past few months,but much legal wrangling remains in the years ahead.Since June,courts in Baltimore and Rhode Island ruled that lawsuits brought by those governments seeking to make large energy companies pay for impacts from climate change should be heard in state courts.The ruling is seen as a win for the plaintiffs-and potentially others like them in places like California-because state courts are generally considered much more favorable to the types of legal claims they are advancing.In general,oil and gas companies have sought to argue that the cases are best suited to federal courts,where they have been successful in arguing that climate change and US climate policy are not the purview of the courts at all,but a question that should be left to Congress and the president.While the shifting of some cases to state court could be a crack in the legal armor the industry has constructed around itself,significant legal wrangling remains to be done before the cases will actually be heard there.Orders to remand,or return,the cases to state venues have been appealed by the industry.On the flip side,rulings that have kept some cases in federal courts,only to be dismissed by those federal courts,have then been appealed by the plaintiffs-which include governments of cities like San Francisco,Oakland and New York.
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