Across the country, left-wing activists are attempting to convert America’s state courts into left-wing policy engines, using local lawsuits to impose their agenda on the rest of the nation. Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will have the opportunity to stop this coordinated lawfare campaign in Suncor Energy v. Boulder County.

On paper, Boulder’s case appears like just another climate change lawsuit against the energy industry. In reality, it is about turning a legal claim known as “public nuisance” into a national policy weapon, giving one county courthouse leverage over how Americans live their lives.

This coordinated campaign threatens the lives of everyday consumers, which is why, as a former solicitor general of Arizona, I recently filed an amicus brief in the case.

Traditionally, public nuisance was legal housekeeping for concrete local problems everyone could see and smell — blocked roads, a tent city and drug den that threatened safety, factories dumping waste into a river. Valid public nuisance claims addressed specific conditions in a specific place, with a clear link between what the defendant did and what neighbors suffered.

Boulder and its allies want to turn that history on its head by treating global climate change itself........

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