Obama Urges Court to Vacate AGW Decision. I Smell a Rat (or Two!)
Last week, in a brief filed on behalf of six large electric power producers, the Obama administration urged the Supreme Court to vacate an appeals court decision (State of Connecticut et al. v. American Electric Power et al.) that would allow states and other parties to sue coal-burning electric utilities for their alleged contribution to global warming-related “injuries.”
The brief clearly lays out the absurdities of attempting to regulate greenhouse gases via public nuisance litigation. Yet the brief stops short of reaching the obvious conclusion implied by its argument, namely that climate policy is a “non-justiciable political question.” Instead, it advises the Supreme Court to direct the court of appeals to reassess its decision on “prudential” grounds.
I smell a rat. The administration, I suspect, does not want the Court to rule that the political question doctrine precludes tort litigation against CO2-emitters, because it wants the only solid, durable shield for industry to be the EPA’s “displacement” of common-law injury claims via the agency’s endangerment rule and ensuing regulatory cascade under the Clean Air Act (CAA).
In other words, just as the administration used the endangerment rule to try and spook Congress and industry into supporting cap and trade, it is now using CO2 tort litigation to try and spook them into supporting — or at least not aggressively attacking — EPA regulation of greenhouse gases via the Clean Air Act.
The administration likely feels some urgency right now about squashing opposition to EPA. In June, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) lined up all 41 Senate Republicans and six Democrats behind her resolution, S.J. Res. 26, to stop EPA from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. This was not enough to pass the resolution, which pro-EPA Democrats defeated by a vote of 53-47. However, Republicans are expected to be stronger in the next (112th) Congress, and several Democrats who voted against the Murkowski resolution support West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s weak-sister alternative, which would prohibit EPA from regulating stationary sources of greenhouse gases for two years. President Obama has already threatened to veto the Rockefeller bill, perhaps realizing that — once adopted — re-enacting the legislation could become a biennial ritual, mothballing indefinitely EPA’s plans to regulate CO2 from stationary sources.
In short, the administration needs to keep the prospect of CO2 litigation chaos alive in order to sustain the “greenhouse protection racket” — the strategy of regulatory extortion — on which warmists increasingly rely to promote their agenda.
What’s my evidence? Patience grasshopper!
First, some background on Conn. v. AEP: in 2004, the states of Connecticut, New York, California, Iowa, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont, three environmental groups, and the city of New York sued six electric utilities for supposedly contributing to climate-related injuries. The utilities — American Electric Power, Tennessee Valley Authority, Duke Energy, Southern Company, Xcel Energy, Inc., and Cinergy Corporation — are the nation’s largest emitters of CO2 (or among the largest). Plaintiffs asked the court to fashion a remedy whereby the utilities would be required to reduce their CO2 emissions by a “specified percentage each year for at least a decade.”
In September 2005, Southern New York District Court Judge Loretta Preska dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that regulating greenhouse gases is a “non-justiciable political question.” In September 2009, however, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Preska’s decision. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals did not rule on the merits of plaintiffs’ injury claims, but held that those claims “do not present non-justiciable political questions.”
The significance? This case is a very big deal: if litigators can sue large utilities for emitting CO2, they can also sue smaller utilities and manufacturers. Indeed, they can in principle sue anyone and everyone. Utilities, after all, only emit CO2 in the process of serving customers who use electricity. People lighting their homes, powering their factories, and running their laptops are ultimately to blame for destroying the planet, according to the “science” invoked by plaintiffs. In their worldview, everybody is injuring everybody else — which implies that everybody has standing to sue everybody else. Plaintiffs may preach “green peace,” but they sow the seeds of a war of all against all.
Everyone produces carbon dioxide by respiration, so a logical extension of the argument is that the climate fanatics should be ordered to end their contribution to the problem by stopping breathing.
Very good article. Large cities pollute their living space, and the biggest
polluter is industry, waste management, and transport. Particularly if a city
is near the ocean, where atmospheric conditions can enhance the movement of
greenhouse gases. The problem is of course stemming from the fraudulent and manipulated data provided by the likes of Michael Mann, Al Gore, Hansen, the UEA, and many more including the UN IPCC. Who have been paid millions to prove AGW, not the other side, and I am a knowledge based skeptic. Climate change is not dictated by the amount of emissions a country or area emits. But rushing into the Carbon trading and clean energy investments, trillions is now invested not to improve the environment, but to allow emitters to keep emitting, and buy carbon credits.
Add to this the fact CO2 is not a pollutant nor a great percentage of Greenhouse Gases (4% and 3% is naturally produced) 95% is water vapor, and 1 %
is trace gases like methane, nitrous oxide, ozone. Our climates are controlled
by much more powerful entities, like solar activity, tidal movements, orbit,
and to a point natural disasters, such as volcanic and seismic activity, and sub atomic particles from outer space. Climate is what we expect? Weather is what we get – and weather kills us!
You and I and all living things plus most minerals are made of Carbon. We are a Carbon based planet. We are an ice planet naturally, and now temps are dropping, we can expect that in years to come we will be experiencing another
mini or glacial period. Now – don’t wish this on us. The Northern Hemisphere
will be more effected than the Southern Hemisphere.
I think most governments in the world have been conned by people who wish to
make money or have political influence on another countries economy and citizens welfare. Ask Al Gore the first Carbon Billionaire to reappraise his
“Inconvenient Truth’ then sue him for fraud.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present
* and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Military-Industrial Complex Speech”, 1961
I agree. Litigation is not the way to approach the problem of global warming. It would have been better to limit CO2 by law, but special interests rule Congress.
The “problem of global warming” is in your mind. Global warming/cooling is a natural cycle of the planet. The Medieval Warm Period experienced temperatures higher than they have been during any of the last 20 years. Phil Jones, the IPCC climate guru, admitted to the BBC that there has been no “statistically significant climate warming during the last 15 years”.
Is there not a shred of integrity, or honesty with this clown-clan? Is this not altogether unconstitutional??
Are they going to sue us for breathing? What about volcanoes? Are they going to tax Volcanoes? How about cows, horses, OMG ZOOS have huge stocks of CO2 producing animals. Everyone is going to have to wear a re-breather if this sort of legislation goes to it’s logical conclusion. That’s it. Eliminate all forms of animal life that produces most of the CO2 on this planet, and don’t forget to plug those foul gas emitting volcanoes and undersea vents.
Wow! If anyone still believes that Obama and his minions are not out to destroy America then they need serious psychological help.
Hopefully the next conservative led Congress and the next conservative POTUS will abolish the EPA. And since we cannot make illegal class-action law suits, I suggest we tax all law firms, and parties to CO2 suits at 99%. And loser pays. Any foundation or organization that participates in CO2 suits be reclassified and lose their 501(c)(3) status. Any group of organization that takes federal money cannot participate in CO2 law suits like the NRDC.
But this is moot if Dear Leader gets one more SCOTUS pick.
This will get Obama and his merry band of carbon credit traders back in business again. He and his lying Greenies, meaning dollar hungry dolts, are waiting for this to pass so they can reopen the carbon credit exchange in Chicago that has all but died. They all expected to make trillions on the backs of the American peole.
Given that we now know that “climate change” is a myth concocted by the radical left, how can this lawsuit possibly help America? What is it that is being done for the benefit of the people? How can this result in anything but higher energy prices for no good reason? When are we finally going to stop creating problems with government programs and regulations?
What seemed so radical only a few years ago should now be seriously considered. Given the waste of time and tax dollars on this and other lawsuits brought for no reason other than an extrememly bad law, isn’t it time to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency?
Eliminating the EPA is by far the best solution. It once served a purpose but is so thoroughly infested with with Eco Nazis in particular and Bolsheviks in general that reform is impossible. Best start over and on a much smaller scale.
Godwin’s Law 1, thread 0
Climate change is a naturally occurring and reasonably cyclical phenomenon, clearly shown in the Vostok ice core data. Anthropogenic global warming is the liberal myth.
http://vangrungy.blogspot.com/2010/08/epa-may-gps-your-vehicle-to-track-your.html
If you are in the 9th Circuit States, the EPA may be tracking your vehicle with GPS right now…
Excellent piece. I hope other grasshoppers exercise patience and stay with the argument. The Obama administration seeking to perpetuate a “protection” situation is classically in character. Ms. Lewis seems to have nailed it.
One thing we all need to keep in mind is that unattainable goals for NAAQS — goals that can’t be met without rolling back a century or more of industrialization — aren’t intended as actual goals. They’re intended as the pretext for a perpetual system of fines. If the air ever reverted to its condition in 1900, the revenue from fining us (or extracting “fees” from us) would dry up. It’s all a rent-seeking scheme to control and profit from the use of resources. But in this case, you don’t get greater value for your dollar, as you do by purchasing gasoline or electricity as oppposed to not doing it. You just pay more to run in place — or slowly lose ground. It’s wholly artificial. It’s a scam.
Obama and company will stop at nothing to increase their power, they want to be able to tell us how we are to live our lives. They want to be the new Nobles and Royals in a neo feudal society.
These companies are playing far far to nice with the cultist filth…global warming cultists often get away with massive hypocrisy because it goes unchallenged.
The first thing these companies need to do is sue those state and eco-terrorist groups on the same grounds they are being sued. Then expand that lawsuit to include hollywood and al gore and friends…you watch how fast courts throw out every lawsuit when they’re a chance its not going to be freedom money. The amount of CO2 a state that CA produces on useless BS dwarfs anything these companies produce. It would be the fastest trimming of state budgets in history.
Anytime a president tries to tell the Supreme Court what to do makes me nervous. If they comply, isn’t that just nudging us closer towards dictatorship?
If we were to forgo the use of electricity and decide to light our homes with candles or oil lamps in the name of planetary salvation, we would produce more CO2 and black smoke than we do now, because a power plant producing enough electricity to lit 10 million light bulbs is far more efficient than the 100 million candles necessary to produce as much light.
In any case, if we were to succeed in depleting the atmosphere of CO2 by some miraculous chemical process, the vast quantities of CO2 dissolved in lakes and oceans would slowly diffuse back into the atmosphere. CO2 is not a poison. It is an essential feedstock for plant growth. Without atmospheric CO2, agriculture would become impossible, as plants require the carbon dioxide collected by their leaves in order to grow.
The rational solution is to abolish the EPA, before we have to pay a fee to exercise our spontaneous methane emission rights, as guaranteed by state-issued farting permits, to be worn on one’s person at all times, in case of arrest for some other violation. Only government can poison everything and create real problems under the pretense of solving imaginary ones, as Thomas Sowell explains brilliantly in his National Review Online column today.
Note also the similarity to the argument against SB1070. The argument is that only the federal government can prevent the chaos that would result from numerous parties trying to deal with a single problem.
Both cases are really arguments for strong central government, based on the claim that decentralized approaches are chaotic.
I have an idea! Let’s stop as much CO2 from getting into the atmosphere, that way most plant life on the erath will perish. When that happens, all the Vegans and vegetarians(the eco crackpots responsible) will starve to death. Those left will be the carnivores who can take off their CO2 scrubber masks, start putting CO2 back into the atmosphere and our problems will be solved. No more nutballs to have to listen to or deal with. The Democrat party will be about 1/10 of it’s original size. I see no downside to this. LOL
The epa has already driven millions of jobs out of the country, what’s a few million more. At the same time they can double or triple our utility bills. Sounds about right to me.
We’v e got volcanos going off left and right and what do you hear from these guys? I mean do they tell us how many tons of what is going where? Nope those volcanos must not have anything to do with their agenda er global warming
Ah, but those volcanoes are mere side effects of Bushhitler’s secret Haliburton earthquake machine as exposed by the president of Iran…
this is more about oBamba– it is messing up our country and our money.
I hate the giant windmills. They are a blight on the entire western landscape. This CO2 crap is a push to build more of the damned useless things using taxpayers money and designed only for getting a few politically connected types a guarantee of an investment profit. In exchange, morons like T Boone Pickens will kiss the Democrats collectivist asses. You and I get fleeced and the Dems get to fill their campaign war chests. Any smug eastern elitists looking out their high rise windows at these CHINESE BUILT monstrosities? Of course not. Just us backwater westerners get to see this! Off with all of your heads!
There is one other largely unnoticed aspect of this situation, namely an enormous FATAL fault within all three of the global warming nuisance cases. I summarized that fault in my American Thinker article yesterday, “Supreme Court to Hear Global Warming Case” http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/supreme_court_to_hear_global_w.html
Excepts: “The 12/6 announcement by the Supreme Court to hear an appeal in a global warming nuisance case is a classic example of a double-edged sword…. AGW believers hope the Court will ultimately accept the simple mantra that global warming science is settled, thus corrupt skeptic scientists must be ignored. Sadly, it takes a maddening amount of detail to tell how this group is interconnected in its efforts to manipulate us into believing such a simple concept. That’s the double-edge.
But an edge which could cut them to shreds is a simple question prompted by all that maddening detail: ‘You want us to ignore skeptic scientists based on a guilt-by-association accusation supported by an out-of-context phrase from an unseen coal industry PR campaign memo?!’”