The Supreme Court now faces a clear choice: stop the weaponization of courts against American energy workers or let states keep outsourcing prosecutions that punish lawful, federally authorized activity. This piece argues why the Court should protect federal contractors, reinforce the rule of law, and block tactics that turn litigation into a political revenue stream. The stakes are economic security, national security, and the daily lives of thousands of oil and gas employees. The decision will signal whether our constitutional guardrails still mean anything when power and money collide.
For years, some states have outsourced enforcement to private trial lawyers who profit when they win big judgments against energy companies. That arrangement creates a dangerous incentive structure where litigation becomes a business model, not a neutral search for justice. When local attorneys fund political campaigns and then bring suits in friendly courts, impartiality is gone and fairness is a fixture only on paper.
Federal officer removal exists to prevent exactly this kind of local bias from skewing outcomes against parties acting under federal authority. Companies that performed work under wartime directives or federal contracts should not be left to fend for themselves in parochial state courts. A uniform federal standard protects the nation’s broader interests, and it preserves the predictable legal environment that employers and workers rely on.
The Louisiana coastal litigation shows how badly the system can break. State governments struck “joint prosecution” deals with private counsel and effectively handed away core enforcement functions. When a government steps back and lets private litigators call the shots, those litigators’ financial interests can steer cases in ways that don’t reflect the public interest or constitutional limits.
Economic damage has followed. Massive verdicts and the threat of hundreds of similar suits discourage investment, cost jobs, and drain revenue that would otherwise go to schools and infrastructure. That ripple effect hits dockworkers, rig crews, refinery employees and service contractors who had nothing to do with decades-old federal decisions made during wartime. Punishing current workers for historical policy choices is both unfair and foolish.
There is also a national-security angle. During World War II, oil production operated as a public–private partnership under federal direction to support a national emergency. Treating wartime production as ordinary private conduct ignores that context and invites state courts to second-guess federal wartime judgment. The federal government has an interest in shielding such activity from parochial, politically motivated litigation.
As the Solicitor General explained, “[H]ere, removal is appropriately tied to the kinds of connections that risk state-court interference with federal operations,” Sauer wrote. “During World War II, the oil industry operated as a unique public–private partnership with a special wartime agency, the Petroleum Administration for War, overseeing the industry’s operations in service of the Nation’s shared wartime mission. That special relationship supports the removal of these suits challenging wartime production practices.” These are not abstract legal niceties; they are protections that keep federal functions coherent across state lines.
The threat goes beyond one state or one industry. In cases like Suncor v. Boulder County, we see the same blueprint: local rules masquerading as tort law to regulate national energy policy. If states can use lawsuits to remake national policy, Congress’s authority and the Constitution’s allocation of power erode quietly but fast. The Court has the opportunity to draw a clear line before litigation becomes a tool for policy by lawsuit.
Allowing states to deputize private lawyers to pursue novel theories of liability creates a sprawling patchwork of rules for companies that operate nationwide. That patchwork damages commerce, bogs down courts, and invites forum shopping based on which jurisdictions favor activist lawyers. A strong decision for removal rights restores predictability and defends interstate commerce from parochial judicial politics.
At bottom, this is about the rule of law versus the rule of lawyers. Our founders built a system that prevents local majorities from reshaping national economic life through backdoor litigation. Courts should not be a substitute for the democratic process when policy debates belong in legislatures and regulatory halls, not in paid-for courtroom campaigns.
The Supreme Court can stop the exploitation of litigation finance and protect the American workers who show up every day to power this country. A decisive ruling supporting removal and limiting state overreach will protect jobs, preserve federal prerogatives, and discourage the conversion of justice into a fundraising strategy. That’s the pragmatic, constitutional result Americans deserve.
