GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "News Hour."

A new term at the U.S.

Supreme Court kicked off today as justices heard arguments in a major climate change case.

The outcome could shape how other communities hold industries accountable.

Our justice correspondent, Ali Rogin, starts us off.

ALI ROGIN: Jeff, local officials in Boulder, Colorado, are seeking compensation from energy companies Suncor and ExxonMobil for the cost of natural disasters they say are caused by climate change.

But energy companies argue they are not liable, and dozens of similar legal cases across the country could bankrupt the industry and hurt consumers.

Only eight justices heard the case after Justice Samuel Alito recused himself because of his oil and gas stock holdings.

For more on today's arguments and what lies ahead this term, I'm now joined by "News Hour" Supreme Court analyst and SCOTUSblog co-founder Amy Howe.

Welcome back, Amy.

AMY HOWE: Thanks for having me.

ALI ROGIN: Amy, prior to today's arguments, there is an expectation that the conservative judges on the court were going to rule against Boulder.

What's your take on everything after hearing the arguments today?

AMY HOWE: It was hard to read exactly how the court was going to decide this.

There didn't seem to be necessarily a majority coalescing around one legal theory in favor of the energy companies in this case.

A couple of the conservative justices expressed concern about the possibility that ruling for Boulder, the city and county that brought this particular lawsuit, would open the floodgates to similar lawsuits.

Involving climate change, but maybe even involving other causes of action around the country.

So we may just have to wait until some time early next year to see how the justices rule.

ALI ROGIN: And, as we mentioned, Justice Alito recused himself, which means it could be a split 4-4 decision.

But what does the absence of an important conservative justice here mean for the potential outcome?

AMY HOWE: It really does change the dynamic, because, as you said, it leaves them with eight justices.

If they split 4-4, that leaves the lower court's ruling in place.

And,in this case, the Colorado Supreme Court said that Boulder's lawsuit against these two energy companies could go forward.

And so a couple of terms ago, we saw in a case involving an Oklahoma religious charter school Justice Amy Coney Barrett was recused.

The justices split 4-4, leaving the decision against the religious charter school in place.

ALI ROGIN: Wow.

And if the court ends up siding against Boulder, what does that mean for other lawsuits against industries that create pollution?

Does it mean they're all kind of not going any further?

AMY HOWE: It depends on exactly what the court says, obviously, but there are -- as Kannon Shanmugam, who represented the energy companies today at the Supreme Court, said, there are more than two dozen cases around the country right now relying on similar theories to what Boulder has brought in this case, the idea that the energy companies were deceptive in their marketing and in their sales of fossil fuels.

And to the extent that the Supreme Court says that Boulder's claims can't go forward, it would mean that those can't as well.

And that was part of the argument that Shanmugam made at the Supreme Court today, was that we're not really just talking about this case.

We're talking about lots of others and potentially billions of dollars of damages around the country.

ALI ROGIN: Today's arguments were the first of the term, but there's going to be many others.

What else are you watching, listening?

AMY HOWE: So, the court will hear arguments in December in a case involving challenges to bans in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois, on AR-15s, semiautomatic rifles.

That's certainly going to be one of the big cases of the term.

There are 16 million semiautomatic rifles in people's ownership in the United States.

And so the question is whether or not state and local governments can ban them.

There is going to be a couple of cases involving immigration, which we used to think of as a rather technical area of the law, but the Trump administration has made it really part of its policy agenda in this second term.

So there's a case involving the propriety of what we call third-country removals, rapidly deporting noncitizens to countries from which -- to which they don't necessarily have any connection and where they say they may face human rights abuses.

And then there's another immigration case that the court agreed to take up just last week involving whether or not the Trump administration can hold noncitizens who entered the country illegally and then are apprehended in detention without the possibility for a hearing to evaluate whether they could be released on bond while they await deportation proceedings.

And that is a turnabout from earlier administration's policies and could affect potentially millions of noncitizens who are in this country without documentation.

ALI ROGIN: Amy, it's a new term, but these justices didn't really have much of a recess.

They were ruling over the summer on these emergency docket cases, which are a little more rapid-fire.

They're not fully briefed or argued.

And they included some judgments on things important to the president, like the construction of a White House ballroom, mail-in voting, immigration policy.

And some of these decisions went against President Trump, and he really lashed out against the justices on the court that he appointed.

Samuel Alito was asked about this in a recent interview, and we want to play what he said.

SAMUEL ALITO, U.S.

Supreme Court Associate Justice: Criticism of the court by President Biden and justices by President Biden and his administration was very harsh.

And President Trump has been very harsh.

We are not part of any political movement.

And we are not attempting to further any political agenda.

We are trying to interpret the Constitution as best we can and apply it in the cases that come before us.

ALI ROGIN: So we know some of what's on the docket now.

Are there other issues that could come before this court that really matter to this president?

And Justice Alito kind of dismissed some of that criticism, said he takes it in stride.

But I do wonder, what's your sense of how these justices are thinking about this president's antagonism against them?

AMY HOWE: Well, I think that as far as -- I think they would all tell you that they take it in stride, that that's part of the job.

I mean, I think it's certainly unusual for the president to be so critical of the justices whom he appointed.

On the other hand, I would say that he has been highly successful.

Certainly, these were losses on the emergency docket over the summer, but there was a stretch last year on the emergency docket in which the Trump administration won something like two dozen times in a row.

And, as far as things that I'm looking for, potential issues important to the Trump administration that could come before the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has only filled about half of its docket for the 2026-2027 term.

They will continue to add cases at least through January.

And the Supreme Court could take up cases involving the Trump administration's ban on transgender members of the military.

There's a very technical, but important set of disputes involving the Trump administration's efforts to appoint acting U.S.

attorneys in different jurisdictions around the country.

And not involving the Trump administration, but certainly something that we're all keeping our eye on is a pair of challenges to the laws in Texas and Louisiana requiring public school classrooms to post copies of the Ten Commandments.

ALI ROGIN: A very busy term.

Amy Howe with SCOTUSblog, thank you so much.

AMY HOWE: Thanks for having me.