The Supreme Court clerk told counsel Monday that Justice Samuel Alito will not continue to take part in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a high-profile fight over state tort claims aimed at oil and gas companies. The short notice lands one week before oral argument on the first day of the 2026-27 term.
SCOTUSblog reported that Clerk Scott Harris sent advocates a brief letter stating the justice’s decision, without any stated reason for the move.
The case tests whether local officials in the Boulder, Colorado, area can press state-level tort theories tying energy producers to alleged climate harms. Similar suits have been filed in states across the country, so the Court’s handling of jurisdiction and claim framing carries wide practical weight for energy defendants and state courts alike.
Harris’s letter used spare language. He wrote that “Justice Alito has determined that he will not continue to participate.” Justices are not required to explain recusals, and this note supplied none.
The announcement tracks a familiar procedural channel. The clerk informs counsel. The justice steps out of the case. Argument still goes forward on the scheduled date, Monday, Oct. 5.
Alito’s continued service on the Court has itself been a recurring public theme, including when he shut down retirement speculation and confirmed he would serve another term. Recusal calls sit beside that personnel story, not inside it.
The Suncor matter is docketed as No. 25-170. Harris’s letter did not expand on holdings, prior cases, or the Court’s code standards. It recorded the justice’s determination and left the rest unstated.
In May, a coalition of left-leaning watchdog groups urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate Alito’s role in the dispute. The groups claimed he held “substantial holdings in individual oil and gas companies” and said those stakes could “undermin[e] public confidence in the impartiality of the Court.”
They also asserted he had “previously recused from considering a petition brought by” the same companies involved in Suncor Energy. Their letter added, “There is no apparent reason for this change in Justice Alito’s recusal practices, and Alito provided no statement justifying his failure to recuse.”
A Supreme Court spokeswoman told NBC News that “Justice Alito does not have a financial interest in any party.” She said Court legal counsel had advised that “recusal is not required.”
That exchange left a public gap between activist demands and the Court’s stated advice. Monday’s clerk letter closed the participation question for argument week without filling in a motive.
In November 2023 the justices issued a code of conduct. It requires recusal from “a proceeding in which the Justice’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
The code describes that test as a situation in which “an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the Justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.” It expressly covers cases in which a justice “has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding.”
Monday’s letter did not say Alito applied that financial-interest clause, the broader impartiality clause, or some other ground. Investigators and the public are left with the operative fact of non-participation, not a labeled rationale.
Alito has staked out sharp positions in other constitutional fights, including when he called birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants “grotesque”. Those disputes are separate from the Suncor docket, yet they show why each recusal draws intense outside scrutiny.
In January, Harris sent a related letter in Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. That note said Alito would not continue to participate and pointed to a “financial interest in ConocoPhillips, the parent corporation for Burlington Resources Oil and Gas Company.”
The January letter sketched a sequence. Alito initially decided not to recuse after Burlington was dismissed as a petitioner on June 2, 2025, under Rule 46.1. Burlington had advised the Court it was “withdrawing” from the petition and that “neither Burlington Resources nor ConocoPhillips will be a party to (or have any other involvement in) the above-referenced case.”
Later briefing, however, noted that Burlington remained a party in the district court. Harris then announced Alito would not continue in that matter, less than a week before argument.
SCOTUSblog’s account of the new Suncor letter does not repeat that ConocoPhillips explanation. It records only the bare determination that Alito will not continue to participate.
County commissioners in the Boulder area are pursuing state tort claims over oil and gas companies’ alleged role in exacerbating climate change. Energy petitioners, including Suncor Energy Inc., are fighting the structure and forum of those claims.
Because parallel suits appear in multiple states, a Supreme Court ruling can reset leverage far beyond Colorado. The legal questions center on where such cases belong and which theories state courts may entertain against national energy firms.
Institutional fights over Court process often travel with high-salience dockets, much as they did when the Supreme Court blocked Trump mail ballot rules in a 7-2 decision that drew a pointed Alito dissent. Recusal mechanics are quieter, but they still decide who sits for the decisive votes.
With Alito out, an eight-justice bench will hear the October argument unless other changes intervene. The clerk’s letter does not discuss vote math, reargument, or further recusals.
Authorities have not publicly detailed why Alito stepped away from Suncor after the May pressure letter and the spokeswoman’s assurance that counsel saw no recusal duty. The Monday note gives the result, not the chain of reasoning.
No public release in the SCOTUSblog account itemizes current holdings tied to the Suncor parties. The coalition’s “substantial holdings” claim stands as its allegation. The spokeswoman’s statement stands as the Court’s counter on party-specific financial interest.
Harris’s Suncor letter also does not identify any prior petition by the same companies from which Alito previously recused, even though the coalition made that claim. That point remains an unadjudicated assertion in the public record described here.
Procedurally, counsel now prepare for argument without Alito. The Court has not announced any further written explanation. Justices sometimes describe recusal grounds, especially when prior judicial service is involved, but they do not have to.
Separate administrative-power cases continue to define the term’s larger arc, including when the Supreme Court greenlit Trump’s expanded citizenship database for voter roll checks. The Suncor recusal is narrower. It decides one seat at one counsel table on opening day.
The Monday letter arrived with argument only a week away. That timing mirrors the January Chevron notice, which also came less than a week before argument.
Last-minute shifts force advocates to adjust moot sessions, questioning strategy, and vote counting under compressed conditions. The clerk’s office handles the formal notice. The parties absorb the practical shock.
Oral argument remains set for Monday, Oct. 5, the opening day of the 2026-27 term. The Boulder climate tort fight will be heard. Justice Alito will not take part.
When clerks speak in one sentence and activists speak in volume, the public still needs the same thing from every justice: clear rules, even application, and a Court that shows its work when the law of recusal is the story.
