The Ninth Circuit has handed Alaska regulators a significant win in a dispute over access to oil-and-gas well information, ruling that federal law does not preempt an Alaska statute requiring disclosure of certain ConocoPhillips well data. The decision reverses a lower-court ruling that had allowed the records to remain confidential and marks an important appellate development at the intersection of energy regulation, public-records obligations, and preemption doctrine.

At a high level, the fight centered on whether federal statutes and regulations governing energy-related information displaced Alaska’s disclosure regime.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed oil and gas defendants a meaningful procedural victory in long-running Louisiana coastal-damage litigation, unanimously holding that the companies may pursue a federal forum under the federal-officer removal statute when the challenged conduct is tied to wartime fuel production for the federal government. The ruling, covered in AP’s report on the decision, does not resolve the merits of the environmental claims.

The U.S. Supreme Court on April 17, 2026 handed Chevron a significant procedural victory in long-running Louisiana coastal-damage litigation, unanimously ruling that the company may pursue removal to federal court in a major suit brought by Plaquemines Parish. The decision does not resolve the merits of the parish’s land-loss and environmental damage claims, but it strengthens a key defense strategy in a wave of cases targeting oil and gas operators for decades of coastal erosion and wetlands degradation.

The case, Chevron USA Incorporated, et al., Petitioners v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, et al., has been closely watched because Louisiana’s coastal suits have produced enormous exposure risk.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a closely watched dispute over whether state and local governments can continue pursuing climate-change tort claims against oil and gas companies in state court. The case arises out of Colorado litigation brought by local governments seeking to recover damages tied to alleged climate impacts, including costs associated with extreme weather, wildfire risk, and other harms.

At the center of the fight is a recurring threshold issue in climate-liability litigation: forum.