It was not a surprise last Thursday, when U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan dismissed with prejudice New York City’s lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell. The city’s lawsuit sought to hold these oil companies accountable for infrastructure damage related to climate change, claiming that the defendants knew that their production and sale of fossil fuels would have environmental effects such as rising waters, and that therefore, the defendants should help pay for the city’s infrastructure costs.

Judge Keenan’s opinion held that the city’s claims boiled down to the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, which cross state lines, and not just the defendants’ production and sale of fossil fuels. As such, the city’s state-law claims were pre-empted by federal law, namely the Clean Air Act. In his opinion, Judge Keenan relied on U.S. District Judge William H. Alsup’s February decision that climate suits against the same defendant oil companies brought by Oakland and San Francisco should have been brought in federal court. They city said that it would appeal Judge Keenan’s dismissal.

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