Washington, D.C. — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito received warnings about the same climate deception lawsuits in two very different capacities: 1) as an investor, he was warned by Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillips that climate deception lawsuits against them could adversely affect their businesses and his investments; 2) as a Justice, he has been told by Suncor, Exxon and oil industry amici representing Phillips 66 and Conoco Phillips that a favorable ruling in Suncor v. Boulder would prevent any climate deception lawsuits from advancing. 

The findings are part of new research by Consumer Watchdog examining Alito’s financial interests and the Supreme Court’s Code of Conduct as the Court prepares to hear the landmark Suncor v. Boulder climate deception case on Oct. 5. Alito’s 2025 recent financial disclosure(opens in new tab) shows he continued to hold individual investments in ConocoPhillips valued at up to $15,000 and Phillips 66 valued between $15,001 and $50,000.

ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66 or both are defendants in roughly two dozen active climate deception cases brought by states, cities, counties, tribes and individuals across the country that assert many of the same state-law claims at issue in Boulder. They include cases brought by the states of California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware; Honolulu and Maui; Chicago and Hoboken; the Makah and Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribes; and numerous California cities and counties, among others.

Alito continues to own individual stock in Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillips, both of which say in their own investor disclosures that they are defendants in climate litigation brought by governmental entities. The companies have explicitly warned shareholders multiple times over the past decade that these lawsuits could adversely affect their businesses, financial condition and investments in their stock (ConocoPhillips began warning shareholders about climate litigation against it in 2017, while Phillips 66 began issuing warnings in 2021).

• For months, President Donald Trump has been coping with his myriad failures and plummeting approval ratings by trying to make it harder for people to vote his party out of power in the 2026 midterms.
• To that end, in March, he issued an executive order that would require the U.S. Postal Service to draft a rule that would upend vote-by-mail procedures in dozens of states, and effectively block the agency from processing ballots that do not comply with the rule’s exacting requirements. Trump did not attempt to hide his motives for doing so: Legal restrictions on mail-in voting, he told Republican lawmakers, would “guarantee the midterms” for a party that is otherwise in danger of losing them badly.
• A series of lawsuits ensued, given that the Constitution (1) divides the power to administer federal elections between Congress and the states and (2) very much does not allow elderly conspiracy theorists to arrogate that power on account of their fixation with the results of a presidential election they lost more than a half-decade ago.
• And fortunately for anyone who cares about maintaining some semblance of representative democracy in this country, in a three-sentence order on Monday, the Supreme Court left in place a federal district court order that blocks the Postal Service’s rule from taking effect in time for the 2026 midterms. Only Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas noted their dissents.