Justice Samuel Alito has a financial stake in a pending Supreme Court case that could have far-reaching implications on whether states can hold federal contractors accountable for environmental damage and other corporate malfeasance within their borders.
The case involves oil and gas companies urging the high court to transfer state-based pollution lawsuits to the federal court system, where they may expect a more business-friendly legal venue. Alito holds stock in one of the fossil fuel companies that could benefit from the transfer, but he has so far ignored calls for his recusal from the case.
The Supreme Court case, named Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, was originally brought to the high court in January by Chevron, the Texas Company, ExxonMobil, and Burlington Resources Oil & Gas Company, a subsidiary of ConocoPhillips. According to financial disclosures, Alito owns up to $15,000 of ConocoPhillips stock and has other fossil fuel holdings.
In May, Burlington Resources withdrew from the case, but the broader legal ramifications of the ruling could still affect its business. According to a report from government watchdog Accountable.US shared exclusively with the Lever, the withdrawal “appears to be a cynical attempt to avoid forcing Justice Alito to recuse himself from the case or weaken calls for his recusal.”
But if that was the plan, it hasn’t succeeded in quashing objections to Alito’s involvement in the case.
“I think that Justice Alito should recuse [himself] from this case,” said Doug Lindner, senior director of judiciary and democracy at the League of Conservation Voters. “It looks a little shady that a subsidiary of ConocoPhillips is withdrawing from this particular Supreme Court part of the case, knowing that Justice Alito is a ConocoPhillips shareholder, while the rest of the case continues and the substantive issues remain the same.”
The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment regarding Alito’s financial holdings and whether he will recuse himself from the case.
At issue is a statute called “federal officer removal,” which allows defendants working on behalf of the federal government to transfer cases from state to federal courts. In the current Chevron case, Louisiana communities claim the companies’ work violated state regulations and contributed to coastal and environmental degradation in the region. The companies claim that the work was done under federal contracts, so the cases should be heard in federal courts.
In May 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, known as a business-friendly court, rejected the fossil fuel companies’ argument, and in October 2024 rejected a rehearing of the case. The companies are now taking the matter to the Supreme Court, although the high court has yet to issue a hearing date on the matter.
Oil and gas companies and other interested parties are likely hoping that the federal courts will provide legal venues that will rule in their favor, said Lindner.
“When parties to a lawsuit are fighting over which court the lawsuit should be in, it is often because the party [is seeking] . . . which court is more favorable to them,” he said.
ConocoPhillips and other top oil and gas companies have admitted in regulatory filings that they expect to face climate change–related lawsuits in the future. Gaining access to preferred legal venues for these matters is therefore likely a top concern.
“This Supreme Court, by which I mean the MAGA justices on this Supreme Court, have shown that they are willing to twist the law . . . in order to put thumbs on the scale to benefit the fossil fuel industry,” Lindner said.
Other federal contractors, business groups, and legal foundations backed by dark money groups have filed amicus briefs with the high court urging justices to rule in the oil and gas companies’ interests. The US Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest lobbying group, claims that the high court must move these lawsuits to federal courts instead of state courts “where local interests may sometimes be given undue weight.”
The case could serve as a turning point not only for how states can pursue legal remedies from large corporations in local jurisdictions, but also for the Supreme Court itself. Alito’s financial interests in the case highlight the need for legal ethics requirements for Supreme Court justices, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told the Lever.
“The Supreme Court comprises the only nine people in government not subject to independent ethics review,” he said in a statement. “Episodes like this, where one side manipulates who’s a party, presumably to keep a predictably pro-polluter right-wing justice on a case, reaffirms the need for Congress to require basic ethics and recusal reforms.”
Oil and gas companies were dealt a blow in April when a jury ordered Chevron to pay more than $740 million to clean up Louisiana’s coastlines, after the company was found guilty of violating state environmental regulations for decades. It was the first legal decision stemming from nearly four dozen lawsuits filed by six coastal parishes in 2013 alleging that oil and gas companies violated a 1978 state permitting law.
The lawsuits have led to drawn-out legal proceedings, with multiple Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rulings and even a 2023 Supreme Court rejection of a request to hear the case. The companies have tried to transfer the cases to federal court on three separate occasions, according to legal filings.
In May 2024, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the latest of those attempts, finding that the oil companies failed to show “a sufficient connection” to federal contracts that would allow them to invoke the federal officer removal statute, which allows lawsuits to be moved from state courts to federal courts.
The statute dates back over two hundred years, but the Supreme Court case is focused on a 2011 revision that expanded its purview to include acts “relating to” any action carried out under federal authority, allowing those cases to be moved to a federal forum.
In a petition to the high court, Chevron and the other oil and gas companies argue that because their crude oil production along the Louisiana coast during World War II involved the federal government, it should be decided by federal courts.
“These cases belong in federal court,” the companies stated in a petition to the Supreme Court. “They involve efforts by local governments to sue federal contractors in state court, in part for actions undertaken to fulfill federal contracts.”
The oil and gas industry’s interest in moving lawsuits to friendlier federal venues could extend well beyond the Louisiana cases.
In financial filings, ConocoPhillips states that it has been sued for various reasons, including “environmental damages” and expects future lawsuits related to climate change.
“Increasing attention to global climate change has resulted in an increased likelihood of governmental investigations and private litigation, which could increase our costs or otherwise adversely affect our business,” the company stated in its 2025 10-K filing, adding that it believes the lawsuits are “factually and legally meritless and are an inappropriate vehicle to address the challenges associated with climate change.”
Chevron discloses in its financial filings that the company is currently embroiled in more than thirty lawsuits for “failure to warn, fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud . . . violations of consumer and environmental protection statutes, violations of unfair competition statutes, violations of a federal antitrust statute, and violations of federal and state RICO statutes based upon, among other things, the company’s production of oil and gas products and alleged misrepresentations or omissions relating to climate change risks associated with those products.”
The current Chevron case could have far-reaching implications for the business world, with one company stating in an amicus brief that a ruling against the fossil fuel companies could jeopardize federal contractors. Multiple industry groups have filed briefs urging the high court to side with the oil companies.
That includes the Chamber of Commerce and the Washington Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm dedicated to defending “individual liberty” and the “American free enterprise system.” From 2005 to 2016, the two groups filed more than 560 amicus briefs with the high court, which are designed to help sway justices’ decisions. During the 2022–23 Supreme Court term, the Chamber notched a 72 percent win rate in cases in which it filed amicus briefs, meaning the high court overwhelmingly sided with the lobbying group.
In the current Chevron pollution case, both the Chamber and the Washington Legal Foundation have urged the justices to rule in favor of oil and gas companies. The foundation jointly filed a brief with another conservative legal powerhouse, the Atlantic Legal Foundation. Both legal groups have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from dark money groups. The foundations claim that the lower appellate court’s ruling that the cases should be heard in state court “could deter contractors from serving national needs, undermining national defense, and economic stability.”
“By exposing contractors to state-court bias, the decision below undermines Congress’s intent to provide a federal forum for federal interests,” the foundations wrote.
A group of oil and gas lobbying groups — including the Koch Network–backed American Petroleum Institute, of which ConocoPhillips is a member — also filed an amicus brief. These groups argued that the Supreme Court should reverse the lower court’s rulings because otherwise, contractors may “hesitate to respond to the government’s needs.”
Additionally, a brief submitted by Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefit manager that manages benefits for the Defense Department and other federal employees, highlights how a ruling against the oil companies could have “deleterious consequences” for all federal contractors.
Express Scripts, which is currently under scrutiny from lawmakers for dramatically overbilling the federal government, was sued by California in 2023 for allegedly price-gouging insulin products. The pharmacy benefit manager, along with other companies, sought to have the case transferred to federal court, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it should remain in state court.
Public trust in the Supreme Court is at an all-time low. Half of Americans hold an unfavorable view of the high court, down 22 percentage points from August 2020, according to recent polling.
Like other justices, Alito has been mired in controversy over his financial and personal connections to parties with stakes in his decisions. In 2023, the Intercept reported that his wife leased land in Oklahoma to an oil and gas company for oil drilling in 2022. The following year, Alito authored a majority decision that rolled back certain provisions of the Clean Water Act, a legal win for the fossil fuel industry. That same year, ProPublica reported on how Alito vacationed with a billionaire who later had cases before the high court. The Lever later exposed that the billionaire went on to use Alito-backed rulings to pressure federal regulators.
Now Alito is once again under scrutiny for his oil and gas holdings. Alongside his wife’s land interests, the justice has financial holdings in multiple oil and gas companies — ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, Black Hills Corporation, and Woodside Energy Group — worth up to $380,000, according to disclosures reviewed by the Lever.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Sonia Sotomayor have also come under scrutiny for their personal financial dealings.
“The level of ethics scandal we have seen from the current Supreme Court, and especially from the Republican-appointed justices on this Supreme Court in the last few years, is unprecedented in the whole of American history,” said Lindner at the League of Conservation Voters.
Supreme Court justices are not bound by legal ethics mandates. Instead, they are governed by a voluntary Code of Conduct first introduced in 2023 after ProPublica and other outlets exposed a number of scandals related to the high court. The Code of Conduct states that justices should “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities,” but it is not legally binding.
This is why Lindner and his organization support Supreme Court reforms, such as Whitehouse’s Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, that would require gift disclosures, establish a review board, and codify recusal standards, among other actions.
“[This case] would be just the latest example of the Supreme Court’s MAGA justices twisting the law to benefit the fossil fuel industry at the expense of regular people’s health and safety,” Lindner said. “Just as they put their thumbs on the scales of justice to limit climate action in 2022, roll back clean water protections in 2023, tie the hands of agencies like the [Environmental Protection Agency] in 2024, and weaken community input on major polluting projects in 2025.”
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