Maryland Blocks Frivolous Climate Lawsuits

Breaking news out of Maryland’s highest court, a message that should resonate far beyond the state: judges, not activists or hired experts, control what counts as reliable science in the courtroom.

Fmr. Rep. Jason Isaac (aka “the Carbon King) writes on X.com:

In the latest blow to the climate cult, the Maryland Supreme Court has BLOCKED blue cities in MD from suing energy companies over global climate change. The court made it clear: states/local governments can’t use lawsuits to regulate or seek damages for global climate change.

You can read the ruling here: https://www.mdcourts.gov/data/opinions/coa/2026/11a25.pdf

This is a HUGE win for common sense and energy security. For now, Marylanders’ energy future won’t be held hostage by dark money trial lawyers and the climate cult.

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March 25, 2026 10:07 am

That’s one small step for a state, one giant leap for the law”.

Denis
March 25, 2026 10:11 am

A good win of course but citizens of Maryland are still be held hostage by it’s all-Democrat government that is still pushing wind and solar and all their tag-along costs. The cost of our electricity is up about 50% in two years!

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Denis
March 25, 2026 8:46 pm

Held hostage by the people they voted for?

Reply to  Jeff Alberts
March 26, 2026 4:09 am

I just asked ChatGPT which states have the most Dems in their state legislature. The formatting of this may not come out right, but it should still make sense. I tried to fix it.
*************

States with the Highest Democratic Share of State Legislatures
(approximate share of all legislative seats held by Democrats)

RankStateApprox. Democratic

1 Rhode Island~86%
2 Hawaii~84%
3 Massachusetts~80–82%
4 California~75%
5 Maryland~73%
6 New York~70%
7 Illinois~67%
8 Connecticut~67%
9 Colorado~66%
10 Delaware~65%

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
March 26, 2026 6:58 am

It would be interesting if the D eligible voter %s were included.

Virginia (not on the list) sends 6 democrats and 5 republicans to Congress (Representatives) but the voting population is ~30% republican. I do not have numbers for the State legislature.

No. I am not advocating for gerrymandering (erm, redistricting) to “correct” that discrepancy.

March 25, 2026 10:12 am

Story Tip Climate Depot

VIJAY JAYARAJ
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has publicly shifted toward what he calls energy pragmatism, admitting that society now demands a balanced approach to meeting power needs rather than adherence to rigid climate agendas. This could be a pivotal moment for global energy policy, as one of the planet’s most powerful financial players steps back from decades of ill-advised “green” mandates.

Allen Pettee
Reply to  Steve Case
March 25, 2026 10:33 am

Unfortunately, Fink, just like Bill Gates, is talking out of both sides of his mouth, using words like “balanced,” which simply means he is modifying his public statements with the hope that the Dem climate fanatics will get back into power so he can change his tune back to his true left wing beliefs.

Ex-KaliforniaKook
Reply to  Allen Pettee
March 25, 2026 12:05 pm

Maybe. But Gates needs the power for his AI data centers. That takes a lot of reliable power. You don’t get that from green energy sources.

Reply to  Ex-KaliforniaKook
March 25, 2026 12:22 pm

Trip from Milwaukee to Manitowoc over the weekend went past the New Data center under construction. Lost count of the cranes the whole thing was maybe a mile long.

AI Overview
Major data center infrastructure north of Milwaukee includes the massive Lighthouse AI campus currently under construction in Port Washington, as well as established colocation facilities in Mequon and Glendale. 

Vantage Data Centers
The region is currently seeing an $8 billion to $15 billion investment in hyperscale infrastructure aimed at supporting artificial intelligence workloads.

Denis
Reply to  Ex-KaliforniaKook
March 25, 2026 12:26 pm

You don’t get that from “balanced” power either.

Crispin in Val Quentin
Reply to  Allen Pettee
March 25, 2026 12:14 pm

“Balanced” means they have investments on both sides of the equation. They will make money either way the scam plays out.

Denis
Reply to  Crispin in Val Quentin
March 25, 2026 12:30 pm

If the other side of “balance” is wind and solar, they only make money if they are subsidized, utilities are forced to buy whatever they produce and they get tax advantages as well. Otherwise they make no sense as Warren Buffett explained.

Bryan A
Reply to  Allen Pettee
March 25, 2026 12:17 pm

What else would one expect from a Fink?

Reply to  Allen Pettee
March 26, 2026 4:11 am

Maybe the Fink always had a negative opinion of green energy but was too cowardly to say so- like many other corporate leaders.

JTraynor
Reply to  Steve Case
March 25, 2026 5:15 pm

I think these guys are starting to realize you can’t solve this. Yet, this mood might swing back if subsidies start again.

Reply to  JTraynor
March 25, 2026 10:32 pm

An imagery problem can’t be solved (except by using more and more taxpayers cash)

mleskovarsocalrrcom
March 25, 2026 10:19 am

Big win even though it doesn’t challenge AGW.

Reply to  mleskovarsocalrrcom
March 26, 2026 4:15 am

“That’s one small step for man BlackRock; one giant modest leap for mankind”

Fixed it.

March 25, 2026 10:31 am

An old quote: “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

Green update: “Everybody talks about the weather, but now we’ll sue about it.”

The old quote is wiser.

Sparta Nova 4
March 25, 2026 10:39 am

Maryland????

Be still my racing heart.

I was beginning to convince myself that planet Earth held no intelligent lifeforms. 😉

John Hultquist
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 25, 2026 10:43 am

Instruments on Earth searching for intelligent life are pointed outward.

Bryan A
Reply to  John Hultquist
March 25, 2026 12:18 pm

Excellent point!

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  John Hultquist
March 25, 2026 12:58 pm

Sad but true.

John Hultquist
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 25, 2026 10:43 am

Instruments on Earth searching for intelligent life are pointed outward.

Tom Johnson
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 25, 2026 4:38 pm

That statement is only true ifyou’re dealing only with government organizations.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Tom Johnson
March 26, 2026 6:59 am

Well, perhaps, but if one includes brainwashed and indoctrinated individuals, it is more true than it should or could be.

John Hultquist
March 25, 2026 10:41 am

Many “money trial lawyers” will have to pivot to a new topic. One word Benjamin: plastic. 🙂

JTraynor
Reply to  John Hultquist
March 25, 2026 5:20 pm

That’s really all this is about. Legal fees and “donations” to environmental organizations.

We would get sued by a groups looking to limit flaring at our refinery, or benzene emissions (which we solved with double wiper seals on our tanks before the suit). Always part of the deal was a payout to the Sierra Club. Our partner would have none of it.

Rud Istvan
March 25, 2026 10:55 am

I just checked. Losing Baltimore was of course represented by Sher Edling (subject of previous WUWT posts.Their batting average thankfully continues to be zero.
As Maryland’s high court court points out, the Constitution’s ‘supremacy clause’ (Article 6, section 2) preempts state law on all climate matters.

Sher Edling has tried several ‘novel’ tort theories, all fundamentally defective.

  1. In San Fransisco, it was nuisance doctrine applied to sea level rise. Except there is no past, present or imminent sea level nuisance.
  2. In Baltimore, it was ‘failure of duty to warn’. Warn about what when, exactly?
  3. In Oregon, it was ‘failure to protect children’s future’. From what?
  4. The only place they have gotten any traction at all is Montana, which has a vague state ‘mining future harm’ law on the books that is inapplicable as precedent anywhere else. That will surely fail on appeal due to vagueness and the supremacy clause.
Russell Cook
Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 26, 2026 2:07 pm

My term for them is “the Sher Edling boilerplate” series. My list of them is here, with dissections of each of their 23 lawsuits overall, 16 are still current. The consistent theme in these is their four false accusation elements about ‘industry disinfo campaigns.’ I’d already penciled in the dismissals of their Baltimore v BP and Annapolis / Arundel County v BP lawsuits in 2024 and 2025. I didn’t see a way in ’24 / ’25 for Sher Edling to get all three back into the ‘current’ pile, and this latest ruling absolutely affirms that. Sher Edling, by my own count of the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits overall, is also ‘assisting‘ in four other lawsuits. In a roundabout way, San Francisco v BP almost qualifies as one of their ‘assisting’ filings, but it was originally filed by the Hagens-Berman-Pawa law firm and then was later taken over by Sher Edling in a manner that begs for deeper investigation. I still count San Fran in the Hagens firm pile. Sher Edling’s Maine v BP – as I detailed in my dissection of that one – technically plagiarized content out of the San Fran filing.

If I may offer a correction, Sher Edling has no filings at all in Oregon (their now-dismissed PCFFA v. Chevron covered a trade association’s area of the northern CA coast / southern Oregon coast) or Montana. The Oregon County of Multnomah v Exxon filing is – as I detailed here – little more than a plagiarized copy of the now-dismissed Puerto Rico v Exxon filing, which in turn apparently plagiarized some of its accusation content from the now-dismissed Sher Edling primarily-handled NJ AG Platkin v Exxon filing. I’ve never counted the Held v. Montana childrens’ filing among the “ExxonKnew” lawsuits because it accused the state of Montana (paragraph #185 and elsewhere) of ‘knowing’ about the harm of CAGW, but not any energy company, plus Held makes no mention whatsoever of the industry running disinfo campaigns employing skeptic climate scientists. Sher Edling has no involvement in that case.

Ex-KaliforniaKook
March 25, 2026 12:03 pm

I appreciate hearing about such events. Living in the west (Reno, Nevada) about the only news we hear from the East Coast has to do with DC, NYC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Florida. I know that last doesn’t seem to fit with the others, but I see news about happenings from all over that state. The rest is focused on the big cities.

I can’t believe Md is leading the way on this. I met and married my wife there – still have property there. Very liberal.

strativarius
March 25, 2026 12:15 pm

a HUGE win for common sense

We could do with some of that.

Rud Istvan
March 25, 2026 1:13 pm

Separate observation. The more serious ‘lawfare’ against Trump—two impeachments, four indictments, MaL raid—all failed. The many less serious ‘climate lawfare’ attempts have all failed also.
There is a common denominator reason. All of both were bogus. Facts eventually matter in law.

bo
Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 25, 2026 7:59 pm

Lawfare doesn’t always fail. In Maryland, Sierra Club lawfare (and moronic state representatives) pissed off Talen Energy enough that they decided to not replace 1GW of coal power plants with a natural gas plant. Instead they decide to shut the coal plants down and exit the state. Ratepayers are now paying $15 million a year in Reliability Must Run fees to keep the plants open because there was no replacement.

Reply to  bo
March 26, 2026 9:58 am

That’s what makes America great. You can leave when idiots legislate.

Something California and New York are currently experiencing.

MarkW
Reply to  doonman
March 26, 2026 11:07 am

Capitalists build walls to keep people out.
Communists build walls to keep people in.

Edward Katz
March 25, 2026 2:17 pm

It’s about time someone stepped in to take action against lawsuits that are really no more than stalling tactics. The climate alarmists realize that they ‘ve been fighting a losing battle for years now, but instead of giving it up completely, they continue to employ delaying tactics in the the vain hope will stall resource development, and fossil fuel generated power plants while continuing the mandates for overpriced green products. Citizens need to push back even more against these obstructionists who are just contributing to higher living costs while accomplishing nothing positive.

bo
Reply to  Edward Katz
March 25, 2026 8:01 pm

I would thing the Justice Department could figure out some way to apply RICO to Sher Edling.

March 25, 2026 11:18 pm

Did I hear somewhere that Maryland is considering mandating tampons in men’s toilets ??

Or just a hoax?

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  bnice2000
March 26, 2026 7:07 am

There is a bill.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/maryland-bill-would-mandate-tampons-mens-bathrooms

The arguments for it as as absurd as they were in prior years.
A girl is highly unlikely to reveal her need to a boy on the off chance he could embarrass himself fetching one for her.

Instead of putting dispensers in the boy’s bathroom, why not just add twice the capacity in the girl’s?

The is an offshoot of the trans identity bathroom nonsense.

Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 26, 2026 10:08 am

I’ve often wondered why tampon dispensers must be placed inside of restrooms at all?
Why not just place them outside somewhere where everyone that wants one can have unfettered access to them?

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  doonman
March 26, 2026 10:44 am

One minor consideration is when/how the device is applied.
A second is a minor privacy concern. Girls frequently do not wish it to be know for them it is that time of the month.
Then there is always vandalism.

Reply to  bnice2000
March 26, 2026 10:03 am

I did an informal poll of women I know recently. Not one has ever asked their significant other to fetch a tampon for them while going to the mens restroom.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  doonman
March 26, 2026 10:44 am

Imagine the consequences in high school.

March 26, 2026 4:01 am

“judges, not activists or hired experts, control what counts as reliable science in the courtroom”

Not so much that the judges have decided what counts as reliable science in the courtroom- more like they’ve decided some issues are not the in the legal jurisdiction of local communities.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
March 26, 2026 7:09 am

Concur.

Seems our Constitution has value after all, eh?

Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 26, 2026 8:17 am

I believe- could be wrong- but America is now the longest continuous government on the planet. Certainly China has the longest continuous civilization but they’ve been seriously interrupted many times.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
March 26, 2026 10:50 am
  • U.S. Senate (.gov) and other sources affirm the U.S. Constitution (1789) is the oldest surviving written charter of government.
  • San Marino is often cited as having the oldest, consistently active governing statutes (known as the WorldAtlas Statutes of 1600), but some historians argue these do not fit the modern definition of a single constitution.
  • The United Kingdom is often considered a top contender for the longest continuous system of government (arguably from the 1660 Restoration or the 1688 Glorious Revolution), predating the U.S. structure.

According to Google AI.

History, real history is fun.

TBeholder
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
March 29, 2026 12:47 am

America is now the longest continuous government on the planet.

You need a very peculiar definition of «continuous» for this.

TBeholder
March 29, 2026 12:54 am

The important part is

By reinforcing rigorous evidentiary standards, the court has made clear that plaintiffs cannot use the courtroom as a backdoor to achieve policy outcomes they failed to win through legislation or regulation

While on the face value it’s eye-watering… officially and explicitly renouncing “legislation from bench” like this certainly is a sign that something have turned in USA. It’s not yet clear exactly what and where, but it turned. Compare:

All of the legal defense funds out there… um… they’re looking for people with court of appeals experience… because—it is—court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know—and I know—this is on tape and I should never say that, because we don’t make law. I know. [audience laughter] Okay. I know. I’m not promoting it—I’m not advocating it—you know. Um… Okay. [more laughter] Um…

― Judge Sotomayor