A Novel Tactic on Warming
Moving aggressively to compensate for Washington's unwillingness to tackle the threat of global warming, New York, seven other states and New York City filed suit last week against five of the country's largest power companies. Though the suit's legal prospects are unclear, its political implications are not. Once again, the states are asserting their right to remedy environmental problems that the Bush administration and Congress have ignored.
The lawsuit is the first by local governments aimed at forcing companies outside their jurisdictions to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas believed to be largely responsible for the warming trend. The list of defendants reads like a who's who of the industry: the American Electric Power Company, the Southern Company, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Xcel Energy and the Cinergy Corporation. Together, they own or operate 174 power plants in 20 states that emit almost a quarter of the utility industry's carbon dioxide emissions and about 10 percent of the nation's total emissions.
The companies do not dispute the notion that carbon dioxide is a big contributor to climate warming. They complain instead that they are being unfairly singled out and, further, that the states are usurping Congress's power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. But since neither Congress nor the administration has shown much interest in pushing comprehensive legislation to regulate these gases, the states can hardly be blamed for using the levers at hand.
The attorneys general, including Eliot Spitzer of New York, are to some extent in uncharted legal waters. The novel basis for their action is the common law of public nuisance, and the states will have to persuade a judge that global warming is a "public nuisance'' that harms, or might harm, the residents of the states bringing the action.
They could well prevail. Few mainstream scientists doubt that the threat of warming is real and that carbon dioxide is a major cause. Moreover, this particular group of attorneys general, mostly Northeasterners, have already demonstrated an ability to use the courts to force action on problems that Washington ignores - most recently lawsuits pressuring utilities to reduce emissions of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide. Their hope now is to do the same with a gas that could ultimately prove far more dangerous.
New York Times
Moving aggressively to compensate for Washington's unwillingness to tackle the threat of global warming, New York, seven other states and New York City filed suit last week against five of the country's largest power companies. Though the suit's legal prospects are unclear, its political implications are not. Once again, the states are asserting their right to remedy environmental problems that the Bush administration and Congress have ignored.
The lawsuit is the first by local governments aimed at forcing companies outside their jurisdictions to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas believed to be largely responsible for the warming trend. The list of defendants reads like a who's who of the industry: the American Electric Power Company, the Southern Company, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Xcel Energy and the Cinergy Corporation. Together, they own or operate 174 power plants in 20 states that emit almost a quarter of the utility industry's carbon dioxide emissions and about 10 percent of the nation's total emissions.
The companies do not dispute the notion that carbon dioxide is a big contributor to climate warming. They complain instead that they are being unfairly singled out and, further, that the states are usurping Congress's power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. But since neither Congress nor the administration has shown much interest in pushing comprehensive legislation to regulate these gases, the states can hardly be blamed for using the levers at hand.
The attorneys general, including Eliot Spitzer of New York, are to some extent in uncharted legal waters. The novel basis for their action is the common law of public nuisance, and the states will have to persuade a judge that global warming is a "public nuisance'' that harms, or might harm, the residents of the states bringing the action.
They could well prevail. Few mainstream scientists doubt that the threat of warming is real and that carbon dioxide is a major cause. Moreover, this particular group of attorneys general, mostly Northeasterners, have already demonstrated an ability to use the courts to force action on problems that Washington ignores - most recently lawsuits pressuring utilities to reduce emissions of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide. Their hope now is to do the same with a gas that could ultimately prove far more dangerous.
New York Times
