Supreme Court Term Preview: Climate, Trump’s Agenda, Guns, Religion and Immigration Fill a Heavy Docket
Washington — The Supreme Court opens its new term Monday with arguments in a climate change lawsuit against some of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers, but that case is only the beginning of a term that will force the justices to confront some of the most divisive legal questions facing the country. Over the next several months, the court will hear challenges to state and federal gun restrictions, disputes over religious liberty and parental rights, voting rules in Arizona, and a series of immigration enforcement policies embraced by the Trump administration. Behind those scheduled arguments, a host of additional legal battles connected to President Trump’s second-term agenda are waiting in the wings. The justices will consider whether to add those cases to their docket in closed-door conferences, and any cases they accept will likely be decided by the summer of 2027.
The term begins with a case that asks the court to decide whether federal law bars state courts from hearing lawsuits that seek to hold energy companies accountable for global climate change. In the case of Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, sued Exxon Mobil and Suncor Energy in state court, claiming that the companies’ sale and allegedly deceptive marketing of fossil fuels violates state law. The energy companies argue that the lawsuit is really an attempt to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and that such claims belong in federal court, not state court, because the effects of climate change are global and cannot be traced to any particular company. A decision in favor of the energy companies would block Boulder’s lawsuit, which is still at an early stage and seeks money damages.
Lawyers for Exxon and Suncor have warned that allowing these lawsuits to proceed would effectively impose a carbon tax on fossil fuel producers and could bankrupt the industry. In filings with the Supreme Court, the companies described climate change as one of the most complex public-policy challenges of the modern era, noting that greenhouse gases are emitted by every state and every country and cannot be “unmixed and traced to their individual sources.” They also warned that if the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of Boulder is upheld and applied nationwide, all 50 states and their municipalities would be able to ask local courts to create countless, conflicting climate policies.
Boulder County officials, however, argue that the Constitution allows states to address harms that arise within their own borders. Whether the problem should be handled at the federal level, they say, is a decision for Congress. The county also argues that the energy companies rushed to the Supreme Court before the state case had run its course. Even though climate change is a global problem, the county wrote, that “does not disempower states from redressing its local harms either.” The litigation, it added, is not an attempt to solve climate change, but merely asks the companies to bear their fair share of local costs caused in part by their conduct.
Justice Samuel Alito will not participate in the case. In a letter to the parties, the court did not explain the recusal. Alito’s 2025 financial disclosure showed that he owned stock in ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, but did not list individual holdings in Exxon or Suncor.
On Nov. 3, the justices will hear a religious liberty dispute from Colorado. In St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, a Catholic preschool argues that it is unlawfully excluded from the state’s universal preschool program. Colorado’s program provides state funding to families with 4-year-olds, allowing them to choose among public, private, faith-based and in-home providers. But the program includes a nondiscrimination provision requiring participating schools to ensure equal opportunity for children regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, housing status or income level.
In 2023, the Archdiocese of Denver, which oversees more than 30 Catholic preschools, asked for an exemption from that rule so that it could admit only families who agree to adhere to Catholic teachings, including on gender identity and sexual orientation. The Colorado Department of Early Childhood refused. The archdiocese, two parishes and a family then sued, arguing that the refusal violated the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. The plaintiffs said the program was not neutral and generally applicable because it created exemptions to the nondiscrimination requirement. A federal district court sided with the state in 2024, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld that decision, finding that the rule exists in harmony with the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court will also take up two Second Amendment cases on Dec. 2 involving bans on AR-15s and similar semiautomatic weapons. In Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins, the court will consider a Cook County, Illinois, ordinance that has been in place for nearly 20 years and a Connecticut law that was tightened after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. More than ten states and the District of Columbia prohibit AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles. Lower courts upheld both restrictions by applying the new standard set by the Supreme Court in 2022, when it recognized for the first time that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a firearm outside the home. That standard requires the government to show that a gun law is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.
Since that landmark decision, the justices have faced a steady stream of challenges to federal and state gun laws. In 2024, the court upheld a federal law barring people under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns. Last year, it ruled that the government cannot prosecute a habitual marijuana user for having a firearm under the Second Amendment. The court also struck down a Hawaii law that required concealed-carry permit holders to receive permission before bringing firearms onto private property open to the public. The high court previously declined to review challenges to AR-15 bans from Maryland and Illinois, leaving those restrictions in place, but the new cases could produce a broader ruling about the constitutionality of bans on semi-automatic rifles.
On Dec. 7, the court will hear International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson, a case involving Washington state laws that changed the rules for youth shelters when runaway teenagers arrive. Under one of the new exceptions, if a child comes to a shelter after seeking medical treatments for gender dysphoria, including mental and physical health services, the shelter does not have to notify the child’s parents. Instead, the shelter must notify the state Department of Children, Youth and Families. The law also requires the department to offer runaway teenagers those medical interventions at shelters if they seek the care without parental consent.
The question before the Supreme Court is whether the parents have standing to sue. Five sets of parents who say their children have experienced gender dysphoria argue that the laws violate their constitutional right to direct the care and upbringing of their children. A federal district court dismissed the case in 2024, finding that the parents lacked standing, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld that decision.
On Dec. 8, the justices will consider an Arizona voting law in Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota. The case involves an Arizona rule requiring would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote using a state form, as well as the state’s procedures for cleaning up its voter rolls. Federal law says any systematic removal of people from voter registration lists must be completed 90 days before an election. Democratic groups, including the Democratic National Committee, sued to block the requirements after Arizona’s legislature approved them in 2022. A federal district court said that under a 2018 consent decree, local election officials could not reject state registration forms that lacked proof of citizenship, and that the National Voter Registration Act prevented Arizona from cancelling registrations within 90 days of an election. The 9th Circuit upheld that decision last year. Arizona’s voting rules have reached the Supreme Court before; in August 2024, the high court allowed the state to enforce the proof-of-citizenship requirement for the general election, but did not allow it to enforce rules requiring proof of citizenship to vote for president or by mail.
Immigration cases feature prominently on the docket. On Dec. 9, the court will hear arguments in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., a challenge to the Trump administration’s policy of deporting migrants to third countries. The policy, implemented in March 2025, allows for swift removal of migrants to countries other than their own, provided those countries have assured the U.S. that deportees will not be persecuted or tortured. Four migrants subject to removal orders filed a class action, arguing that their due process rights would be violated if they were not given notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal before being sent to a third country. A federal judge in Boston ruled that the policy likely violated their due process rights and ordered immigration officials to provide written notice of the third country of removal and at least ten days to assert a fear of removal. The Supreme Court allowed the administration to resume the deportations while litigation continued, and then, after the judge ruled the policy unlawful, the high court granted an emergency appeal and agreed to decide the merits. The justices have asked the parties to address whether the guidance is unlawful under federal immigration law, the Due Process Clause, and protections against torture.
Another immigration case, Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, concerns the Trump administration’s policy of detaining immigrants in the country illegally during removal proceedings without access to bond hearings. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reinterpreted an immigration law from the 1990s and determined that detainees who entered the country unlawfully are no longer eligible for release on bond, even if they have lived in the U.S. for years. Tens of thousands of immigrants have been detained indefinitely, and hundreds of federal judges have rejected the policy. The case involves a Brazilian man, Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, who came to the U.S. illegally more than 20 years ago and has never been convicted of a crime. After being taken into custody during a traffic stop in Massachusetts, he requested a bond hearing but was denied. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court’s decision in his favor, saying the administration’s interpretation would “send a seismic shock through our immigration detention system and society.”
Beyond the cases already on the calendar, the court faces a queue of petitions involving President Trump’s actions and policies. The solicitor general has asked the justices to decide whether the Pentagon’s policy prohibiting transgender people from serving in the military is constitutional. The administration has also appealed lower court decisions blocking Trump’s appointments of acting U.S. attorneys in New York and Nevada, arguing that he may install allies in a first assistant role and then elevate them. The same mechanism was used in New Jersey and Los Angeles, and lower courts have rejected it. The government has also asked the Supreme Court to review rulings on Trump’s efforts to suspend asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump, in his personal capacity, has asked the court to overturn an $83.3 million defamation judgment awarded to E. Jean Carroll, arguing that presidential immunity applies to his statements.
The high court could also take up challenges to Texas and Louisiana laws requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, with one appellate court already upholding the Texas law. And the justices have been asked to intervene in litigation over plea agreements reached with two men allegedly behind the Sept. 11 attacks, including accused architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. With so many weighty questions in reach, the term that begins Monday is likely to produce far-reaching decisions on the balance of power, individual rights and the limits of presidential authority.
