Justice Clarence Thomas is Fossil Fuels’ Best Friend on the Supreme Court — and It’s Time for Him to Resign
By Aidan Bassett and Clara Douglas
Among the Supreme Court’s recent array of wide-ranging ethical issues, perhaps none have been so glaring as the revelations about Justice Clarence Thomas and his list of conservative benefactors. From trips on billionaire Harlan Crow’s yacht to the paid-off debt of Thomas’ RV, the Justice’s personal corruption has been brought to light in reporting from ProPublica and others and forced a reckoning in the legal profession. But less explored have been Justice Thomas’ particularly close connections to fossil fuel interests, whom Thomas’ decisions have reliably favored in his time on the Court.[i]
Fossil fuel executives have arguably had particular luck that Thomas is perhaps the Court’s most corrupt Justice because he is also the Court’s environmental law specialist, having formerly worked at agrochemical firm Monsanto before his time on the bench.[ii] That Justice Thomas has authored so many of the Court’s most significant environmental law opinions during his time on the Court is thus no accident. From undermining corporations’ obligations to clean up Superfund sites[iii] to writing ominous dissents taking radically anti-regulatory stances on Clean Water Act issues,[iv] Thomas has proven himself the logical Justice to target for fossil fuel interests.
Thomas’ oil connections have also posed serious conflicts of interest that run contrary to the principles of the Court’s new code of ethics, weak though it is. Reporting by ProPublica and others has documented gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from these multi-millionaires, all of which he has historically failed to declare, and none of which would be tolerable for any federal judge bound by the ordinary code of ethics.
Justice Thomas has frequently failed to recuse himself in cases where he has clear conflicts of interest — not least those implicating Koch Industries, its many subsidiaries involved in producing and refining fossil fuels, and the Koch brothers’ broader political network. Even in cases without direct conflict of interest, Thomas has ruled with the majority in cases like West Virginia v. EPA that have weakened the power of fossil fuel regulators, and protected oil and gas interests by achieving seismic shifts in administrative law.
Forbes and ProPublica have explored Thomas’s ongoing relationship with the Koch Network and the Koch Brothers, and The Guardian has highlighted the connections between Koch and the heavily affiliated conservative group Cause of Action, which are major funders of the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo litigation[v] — another case primed to weaken regulators.
Justice Thomas’ fossil fuel friendships in general and specifically in relation to the Koch network raise significant concern in light of Loper, which threatens the future of the Chevron doctrine — a watershed decision favoring deference to regulators when statutes are ambiguous. If Chevron is overturned, expert agencies like the EPA may find it harder to defend regulations or alter interpretations of governing statutes, impairing their ability to safeguard public health and adapt to emerging environmental threats. So while ProPublica did not identify direct benefits to Thomas’ friends from a Supreme Court ruling, Loper presents an opportunity for Thomas to indirectly benefit his fossil fuel friends by reducing the EPA’s ability to regulate them.
Thomas’ failure to uphold even the most essential tenets of judicial ethics makes him not just a strong candidate for impeachment but also a natural fit for bribes or other entreaties from fossil fuel interests. Some of the oil tycoons whose largesse he has enjoyed are members of the Horatio Alger Association, an organization Thomas has helped fundraise for on the Supreme Court’s premises. While so many in the country struggle to get access to justice, these oil tycoons have leveraged their billions to get direct personal access to a Supreme Court Justice.
One notable member of the Horatio Alger Association is Paul Novelly, former CEO of Apex Oil. ProPublica has reported that Apex Oil was sued in 2005 by the Justice Department as the corporate successor to an oil company that caused massive groundwater contamination; Novelly’s luxury trips with Thomas began not long after the Supreme Court declined to hear take up that lawsuit.[vi] Novelly has since flown Thomas on his private jet to the Bahamas to stay on his yacht on multiple occasions (all of which Thomas initially failed to disclose), and in 2020 Apex Oil helped fund a documentary defending Thomas in response to the critical HBO biopic Confirmation.[vii]
Despite the strategic avoidance of direct conflicts of interest, Justice Thomas has thus brazenly engaged in an implicit bargain: accept gifts, luxury trips, and general largesse from conservative billionaires often linked to the fossil fuel industry and, in exchange, provide them with an ever-laxer regulatory environment, with corporations insulated from liability wherever possible and overseen by hamstrung, and increasingly toothless, regulators.
Clarence Thomas is the fossil fuel industry’s man on the inside, and it’s time for him to get out. His personal conflicts of interest, brazen corruption, and clear contempt for efforts to fend off the climate crisis make him perhaps the most dangerous jurist in America — and make it high time for him to resign.
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[i] See, e.g., Scott W. Stern, The Justice from Monsanto: The Environmental Life and Law of Clarence Thomas (2021), available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3776581.
[ii] Id.
[iii] See Cooper Industries, Inc. v. Aviall Services, Inc., 543 U.S. 157 (2004).
[iv] See Cnty. of Maui v. Haw. Wildlife Fund, 140 S. Ct. 1462 (2020).
[v] See Ed Pilkington & Nick Surgey, ‘Get the right cases to the supreme court’: inside Charles Koch’s network, The Guardian (Oct. 26, 2023, 6:00 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/26/charles-koch-us-government-rightwing-supreme-court.
[vi] See Brett Murphy & Alex Mierjeski, Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel, ProPublica (Aug. 10, 2023, 5:45 AM), https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court.
[vii] Id.
