That word “fragmented” is doing a lot of work. To the fossil fuel industry, fragmentation means danger: dozens of lawsuits, dozens of judges, dozens of juries. It means unpredictability. It means local accountability. But what Exxon calls fragmentation, most Americans would call democracy.
And if oil companies are worried about being held accountable in a Colorado courtroom, they should be even more concerned about something far less dramatic and far more powerful: the local zoning code. While the justices debate the reach of federal pre-emption and the limits of state tort law, the real architecture of climate policy is quietly being drafted in city halls across the country. It isn’t found in Supreme Court rulings; it’s buried in 400-page municipal codes.
Zoning is climate policy in its most immediate form. It dictates where homes and businesses can be built, how large they can be, how much land must be paved, whether trees are preserved or removed, whether food can be grown, whether transit is viable and whether every errand requires a combustion engine. Long before emissions are tallied in Washington, they are locked in at the local planning board.
The court may yet decide whether cities can recover damages for climate harm. But no Supreme Court ruling can prevent a city from rewriting its zoning code tomorrow morning.
Most American zoning codes remain trapped in a 1950s development mindset: large lots, single-family exclusivity, sprawling footprints, mandatory parking and maximum separation between uses. These rules don’t just shape neighborhoods — they hardwire emissions.
By mandating low density and prohibiting more efficient housing like accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and tiny homes, many codes effectively require higher per capita energy use. By rewarding oversized homes and ignoring building mass, they incentivize carbon-intensive construction.
But if zoning is the cause; it is also the cure. That means removing barriers to ADUs, duplexes, cluster subdivisions and other smaller-footprint housing. It means reforming floor-area calculations so that excessive bulk and energy waste are no longer quietly subsidized. In cities including Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, zoning reforms have begun to address building mass and neighborhood-scale impacts — not just aesthetics, but environmental performance.
It also means rethinking what happens on the roof and on the ground. Some forward-looking municipalities, including the California communities of Sebastopol and Lancaster, have amended local rules to require solar-ready construction and on-site renewable generation. Others have adopted tree canopy minimums, green roof incentives and pervious surface requirements that treat land not as a parking pad, but as a sponge. When a zoning code requires native tree preservation instead of additional pavement, it is heat mitigation, flood control and carbon sequestration written into law.
What We Eat — and Where It Comes From
For decades, zoning codes have treated food production as something that belongs far away from where people live. Residential districts were for lawns, not lettuce. Chickens were nuisances. Front yards were ornamental, not productive.
That separation carries climate costs. Every mile between farm and fork adds emissions. Every acre of prime soil converted to low-density sprawl locks in further transport dependency.
Local governments can change this immediately. Urban agriculture can be permitted as of right. Edible landscaping can replace water-intensive turf mandates. Community gardens, beekeeping and small-scale poultry can be normalized rather than regulated into oblivion.
Beyond city limits, agricultural overlay zones and development restrictions can protect prime soils from speculative suburban subdivision. Land trusts can be granted rights of first refusal on vulnerable farmland. Protecting thousands of small carrot patches may not make headlines at the Supreme Court, but it meaningfully reduces emissions and strengthens food resilience.
If the fossil fuel industry fears a patchwork of liability judgments, it should fear a patchwork of agricultural preservation zones even more. Those rules permanently constrain the kind of carbon-intensive sprawl on which oil demand depends.
How We Get Around
For nearly a century, zoning has functioned as a quiet subsidy for the automobile. Minimum parking requirements have paved over downtowns. Cul-de-sac mandates have undermined connectivity. Single-use districts that prohibit mixed residential and commercial development have made daily life impossible without a car.
These weren’t neutral choices. They were regulatory commitments to the internal combustion engine.
The fix does not require congressional action. Cities including San Jose, Sacramento and Alameda have eliminated or sharply reduced parking minimums, freeing land for housing and reducing development costs. Tree-canopy requirements, complete streets standards and mixed-use zoning make walking and transit viable alternatives.
When a city swaps parking mandates for shade requirements, it reduces heat islands and emissions simultaneously. When it legalizes corner stores in residential districts, it reduces vehicle miles traveled without ever uttering the phrase “climate regulation.”
The Code Is the Cure
In the case now before the Supreme Court, Exxon and Suncor argue that climate policy should not be shaped by “fragmented” local action. The implication is clear: Climate governance must be centralized, uniform and insulated from municipal experimentation.
But the American land-use system has never worked that way. Zoning has always been local. It has always been powerful. And it has always shaped the physical reality in which climate goals either succeed or fail.
The Supreme Court may narrow the ability of cities to seek damages in state courts. Congress may remain gridlocked. Federal agencies may retreat from aggressive regulation. None of that changes a simple fact: Hundreds of millions of tons of future emissions will pass, at some point, through a local planning decision.
Exxon is right about one thing: Fragmented action can be powerful. That is precisely why fossil fuel companies fear it. And it is precisely why we should use it.
Jonathan Rosenbloom is a professor of law at Albany Law School and the executive director of the Sustainable Development Code.
Governing's opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing's editors or management.
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