Federal-Officer Removal in Climate-Deception Suits Requires a Non-Attenuated Nexus to Federally Directed Conduct

1. Introduction

The City of Chicago filed an Illinois state-court action against fourteen major fossil-fuel companies and a related trade association, alleging that defendants conducted a decades-long misinformation campaign about the climate impacts of fossil fuels. Chicago pleaded exclusively state and local causes of action (including failure to warn, negligence, public and private nuisance, unjust enrichment, consumer fraud, and misrepresentation) and sought damages only for the incremental harms attributable to increased fossil-fuel use allegedly caused by defendants’ misrepresentations.

Defendants removed under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1), pointing to a century of producing and supplying fuel “for, or in conjunction with,” the federal government—particularly wartime and defense-related production, leases and extraction on federal lands, and work with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The district court remanded; the Seventh Circuit affirmed.

The central issue was narrow: whether Chicago’s “climate deception” theory, as pleaded and limited by an express disclaimer, was “for or relating to” defendants’ federally directed conduct within the meaning of § 1442(a)(1).

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Seventh Circuit held that defendants failed the “for or relating to” requirement because the connection between the conduct at issue (alleged deceptive marketing and misrepresentation aimed at consumers and the public) and defendants’ federal work (wartime and defense fuel production, federal leases, and Strategic Petroleum Reserve activities) was “too attenuated”—i.e., “tenuous, remote, or peripheral.” Accordingly, federal officer removal was improper “at this time,” and the remand order was affirmed.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

The opinion is framed as an application of a now-settled “connection” standard for § 1442(a)(1), heavily anchored in Supreme Court and cross-circuit climate-removal decisions.

• Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. Cnty. Comm'rs, 146 S. Ct. 1605 (2026) (mem.): Cited to note the proliferation and national significance of climate cases and that many raise “difficult and novel” questions. The Seventh Circuit contrasts that broader landscape with Chicago’s deliberately narrowed pleading.
• Betzner v. Boeing Co., 910 F.3d 1010 (7th Cir. 2018): Used for the standard of review (de novo) and jurisdiction to review the remand order under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). This situates the appellate posture: the Seventh Circuit can reach the merits of § 1442 removal even though many remand orders are otherwise unreviewable.
• Watson v. Philip Morris Cos., 551 U.S. 142 (2007) and Willingham v. Morgan, 395 U.S. 402 (1969): These cases supply § 1442’s “basic purpose”: protecting federal “operations” from state-court interference. The Seventh Circuit later operationalizes this purpose with a functional question (whether an injunction against the challenged conduct would compromise federal work).
• Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Par., 608 U.S. ___, 146 S. Ct. 1052 (2026): The opinion’s doctrinal center of gravity. The Seventh Circuit adopts Plaquemines’ three-element formulation (supplanting its own four-part phrasing without changing substance) and draws directly from Plaquemines on the “relating to” element: it requires a “connection,” need not be “strictly caus[al],” but must be more than “tenuous, remote, or peripheral.” The Seventh Circuit treats Plaquemines as both clarifying the standard and endorsing other circuits’ remands in similar deception cases.
• Baker v. Atl. Richfield Co., 962 F.3d 937 (7th Cir. 2020): The defendants’ key Seventh Circuit precedent. The court reads Baker as consistent with Plaquemines (same “connection” test), but distinguishable on facts: Baker involved injuries directly caused by contamination where at least some contamination was caused by federally directed wartime production. Here, by contrast, there is no alleged linkage between federal-direction work and the complained-of misrepresentations or incremental consumer consumption.
• In re Commonwealth's Motion to Appoint Couns. Against or Directed to Def. Ass'n of Phila., 790 F.3d 457 (3d Cir. 2015): Quoted via Baker for the proposition that defendants need not show the complained-of conduct itself was done “at the behest of a federal agency.” The Seventh Circuit nonetheless requires a non-attenuated nexus.
• Rutledge v. Pharm. Care Mgmt. Ass'n, 592 U.S. 80 (2020) (Thomas, J., concurring): Provides the phrase “tenuous, remote, or peripheral,” which Plaquemines adopts and the Seventh Circuit applies to reject removal.
• People ex rel. Raoul v. 3M Co., 111 F.4th 846 (7th Cir. 2024): Cited for the Seventh Circuit’s earlier four-part breakdown of § 1442(a)(1), which the panel updates to align with the Supreme Court’s latest formulation. This matters because it signals that the decision is meant to track—and be stable under—recent Supreme Court guidance.
• Climate-removal decisions rejecting § 1442 removal in similar deception cases: The Seventh Circuit treats this line as near-uniform and persuasive—indeed, partially ratified by Plaquemines.
  • Connecticut v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 83 F.4th 122 (2d Cir. 2023)
  • Anne Arundel Cnty. v. BP P.L.C., 94 F.4th 343 (4th Cir. 2024)
  • District of Columbia v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 89 F.4th 144 (D.C. Cir. 2023)
  • Rhode Island v. Shell Oil Prods. Co., 35 F.4th 44 (1st Cir. 2022)
  • City of Hoboken v. Chevron Corp., 45 F.4th 699 (3d Cir. 2022)
  • Minnesota v. Am. Petroleum Inst., 63 F.4th 703 (8th Cir. 2023)
  • Cnty. of San Mateo v. Chevron Corp., 32 F.4th 733 (9th Cir. 2022)
  • Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs. v. Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc., 25 F.4th 1238 (10th Cir. 2022)
  The panel emphasizes that Plaquemines “cited with approval” District of Columbia and Minnesota when describing why consumer-deception claims about the future climate effects of fossil fuels do not “relate to” earlier federal production.
• Benson v. SI Handling Sys., Inc., 188 F.3d 780 (7th Cir. 1999) and Railey v. Sunset Food Mart, Inc., 16 F.4th 234 (7th Cir. 2021): Used to address the procedural afterlife of remand. Even though removal fails now, there is no “absolute one-bite rule”; defendants may remove again if later developments supply a new, good-faith basis (e.g., if damages proof forces federal/non-federal apportionment).

3.2 Legal Reasoning

The court makes the “relating to” element dispositive and declines to analyze the other § 1442 requirements. Its reasoning proceeds in three main moves.

1. The governing standard is a “connection” test with an anti-attenuation constraint. Relying on Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Par. and Baker v. Atl. Richfield Co., the court reiterates: the nexus need not be strictly causal, but it must not be “tenuous, remote, or peripheral.” This framing eliminates two extremes: (a) plaintiffs cannot defeat § 1442 simply by denying federal direction of the exact tortious act; but (b) defendants cannot invoke § 1442 based on any historically related federal work divorced from the pleaded misconduct.
2. Chicago’s pleaded misconduct and damages theory are consumer-deception based and expressly non-federal. The complaint targets an alleged disinformation campaign to “deceive[] customers and the public,” and it seeks recovery only for harms resulting from increased consumer fossil-fuel use attributable to misrepresentations. Critically, Chicago includes a disclaimer: it “disclaims injuries arising on federal property” and those arising from “non-commercial, specialized fossil fuel products” provided for “military and national defense purposes,” seeking “no recovery” attributable to such injuries. The Seventh Circuit treats this as reinforcing (and binding Chicago to) a theory that is independent of federal procurement and specialized military fuels.
3. Defendants’ federal work—past and present—does not sufficiently connect to the charged misrepresentations.
   • Temporal attenuation: The opinion stresses that “most significant” wartime production occurred long before the alleged deceptive conduct, which the litigation frames as beginning in the 1970s. The court aligns this with sister-circuit holdings that WWII-era conduct does not support § 1442 removal for later deception claims (citing Connecticut, Anne Arundel Cnty., and District of Columbia).
   • Subject-matter mismatch: Even more recent federal ties—Cold War and current military fuel contracts, federal leases, and Strategic Petroleum Reserve involvement—are “simply too attenuated” because the case is about consumer-directed misrepresentation, not federally directed production or federal purchasing decisions. The court highlights the absence of any allegation that misrepresentations were directed at the federal government or that federal purchases increased due to deception.
   • Non-interference check: Drawing from § 1442’s purpose in Watson, the court asks whether enjoining the challenged conduct would compromise federal work. Here, an injunction against false advertising would not impede federal fuel production or contracting; defendants conceded as much at oral argument. That concession functions as an applied proxy for the “operations” rationale behind § 1442.

Finally, the court acknowledges but expressly leaves unresolved a doctrinal question debated by the parties: whether § 1442’s nexus must be to the “charged tortious conduct” specifically, or may relate more broadly to “the lawsuit as a whole” (including causation and damages). The panel finds it unnecessary to decide because removal fails even under defendants’ broader framing.

3.3 Impact

Although the Seventh Circuit characterizes the decision as straightforward, it has concrete doctrinal and strategic consequences.

• Reinforces a national consensus in climate-deception removals. By aligning with every other circuit to address similar claims, and by anchoring the analysis in Plaquemines’ endorsement of District of Columbia and Minnesota, the decision makes § 1442 removal markedly harder in the Seventh Circuit for consumer-deception climate cases.
• Validates “narrow pleading + disclaimer” as a jurisdictional design. The opinion treats Chicago’s disclaimer as both clarifying the case’s scope and binding Chicago against later pivoting toward federally attributable injuries—limiting defendants’ ability to bootstrap federal officer removal from general federal contracting history.
• Introduces a practical “injunction compromise” heuristic. The court’s analytical question—if the challenged conduct were enjoined, would federal work be compromised?—is likely to be quoted in future § 1442 disputes as a manageable test for whether the asserted federal nexus is real or merely rhetorical.
• Preserves defendants’ ability to re-remove if the case evolves. By citing Benson and Railey, the panel signals that remand now does not foreclose future removal if later litigation events create a new basis—most plausibly, if damages proof requires apportionment that genuinely implicates federal-direction activities.
• Clarifies the limits of Baker in the Seventh Circuit. Defendants cannot treat Baker as a general federal-officer gateway for environmental tort litigation; the “connection” must run through the pleaded wrongdoing and the plaintiff’s theory of injury in a non-attenuated way.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Federal officer removal (§ 1442(a)(1)): A special removal statute allowing federal officers—and private parties “acting under” them—to move a state case to federal court when the suit is “for or relating to” acts done under federal authority, and when a “colorable federal defense” exists. Its purpose is to protect federal operations from being hindered by state courts.
• “For or relating to” / “connection”: The defendant must show a meaningful link between the plaintiff’s claims and the defendant’s federally directed conduct. It need not be strict cause-and-effect, but cannot be “tenuous, remote, or peripheral.”
• Remand: When a federal court sends a removed case back to state court because federal jurisdiction is lacking. Remand orders are often not appealable, but § 1447(d) provides an exception for certain removals, including § 1442.
• Disclaimer in a complaint: A pleading device narrowing what injuries and damages the plaintiff seeks. Here, it matters because it helps cabin the case away from federal-property injuries and specialized military products—undercutting the claimed federal nexus.
• “No one-bite rule” for removal: A defendant can sometimes remove a case again after remand if later developments reveal a new basis for federal jurisdiction (Benson; Railey).

5. Conclusion

City of Chicago v. BP P.L.C. applies the Supreme Court’s recent § 1442 guidance in Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Par. to hold that climate-deception claims—carefully pleaded to target consumer-directed misrepresentations and to exclude federally attributable injuries—do not become removable merely because defendants have extensive federal contracting and historically produced fuel for national defense. The decision strengthens the emerging rule that § 1442 requires a genuine, non-attenuated nexus to federally directed conduct, and it offers a pragmatic way to test that nexus by asking whether relief against the challenged conduct would interfere with federal operations.