Another domino has fallen. On August 6, the City of Charleston’s climate lawsuit against American energy producers was tossed out by South Carolina state court Judge Roger Young. His ruling wasn’t just a local win for common sense, but the latest in a string of defeats for a “rinse and repeat” climate lawsuit campaign, where nearly identical cases have been filed in states and cities across the country, hoping one will break precedent and deliver a massive payout.

Charleston’s lawsuit, filed in 2020, claimed that energy companies should pay damages for flooding, storms, and higher temperatures, all supposedly caused by fossil fuels. Judge Young saw the danger, highlighting “I’m trying to figure out how this ends.”

The judge also noted the hypocrisy. Charleston, like every modern community, depends heavily on fossil fuels. Under the city’s own theory, it could be liable for the same alleged harms it was trying to pin on others. That alone shows how strange this litigation strategy really is. 

If this were an isolated decision, activists might shrug it off. But it’s not. In just 2025 alone, nearly identical lawsuits have been dismissed by state court judges in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York, all for the same reason: state tort law is not the place to set climate policy. Judges have repeatedly recognized that under the federal Clean Air Act, emissions policy is the exclusive domain of the federal government, not state courts. 

Judge Stephen Corr in Pennsylvania put it plainly: these claims “are not justiciable by any state court.” Judges in Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Baltimore, Bucks County, and Mercer County have reached similar conclusions. In each case, the court found that these lawsuits are an inappropriate attempt to use local law to regulate a global phenomenon.

Make no mistake: these cases are politically driven and not based on any allegedly altruistic motivations. They are the product of a coordinated network of activist law firms, advocacy groups, and donors who see the courts as a shortcut to impose an anti-energy agenda they can’t enact through legislation. The law firm Sher Edling has spearheaded this campaign, filing more than two dozen nearly identical cases across the country, often bankrolled by wealthy foundations and political allies. An investigative news report notes that the firm has taken in nearly $14 million from activist grantmaking foundations and even donated $49,000 to the Democratic Attorneys General Association from 2023 to 2024 — the same group whose Democratic AG members have hired Sher Edling to pursue these suits on the taxpayers’ dime.

This is lawfare: the weaponization of the legal system to achieve policy goals voters have rejected. 

The good news is that the legal system is holding the line. From South Carolina to Pennsylvania and Maryland to New Jersey, judges are making it clear that this isn’t how America makes policy. State and federal court judges, aligned with the Democratic and Republican Parties, have recognized that these climate change lawsuits are federally preempted, practically dangerous, and a waste of taxpayer resources. 

Other cities and states still pursuing these lawsuits should take the hint and stop being bullied into joining this misguided campaign. This courtroom stunt, designed to enrich the law firms backing the lawsuits and score political points, delivers legal defeat and public embarrassment instead of results. If these localities continue, they risk spending years in litigation, burning public funds, and ending up where Charleston, New Jersey, and Bucks County have landed – with nothing to show for it except a legal bill and a press release. 

Charleston’s loss is another sign the tide is turning, and the message from South Carolina and beyond is clear. Courts are building a wall of precedent against this kind of litigation abuse, and climate policy belongs in the hands of elected lawmakers, not in the backrooms of activist law firms or the chambers of overburdened state courts. 

Stop the lawsuits. End the lawfare. And focus on building a reliable, affordable energy future Americans actually need.

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