Panel 2: New Frontiers for Traditional Fuels: Deregulation or Lawfare?

Energy policy is increasingly defined by "lawfare," where litigation and extraterritorial state legislation are used to bypass traditional democratic processes and impose restrictive climate mandates on the energy sector. This strategy, exemplified by climate superfund statutes and nuisance lawsuits, seeks to bankrupt or control traditional energy production by targeting deep-pocketed companies across state lines. Simultaneously, the EPA is pursuing a deregulatory agenda, rescinding Biden-era rules that constrained baseload power to ensure the energy reliability necessary for the burgeoning AI infrastructure race. The Supreme Court’s upcoming Suncor case serves as a pivotal opportunity to establish constitutional guardrails against these extraterritorial regulatory and litigation efforts, potentially resetting the playing field for domestic energy production. These developments highlight a fundamental tension between state-level policy exportation and the need for a stable, national regulatory framework to support long-term capital investment.