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The attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, and Wisconsin, and the corporation counsel of New York City, filed a complaint on July 21 in federal district court in Manhattan alleging that five leading electric power generators in the United States had created a “public nuisance” by emitting carbon dioxide and thereby contributing to global warming.  All but one of the officers who brought the suit are Democrats.

“Save Our Planet,” Say Lawyers

The government lawyers are not seeking monetary damages but rather an abatement ordera court order requiring the utilities to reduce their emissions.  Consequences for noncompliance would be fashioned by the court.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said at a press conference on July 21, that the litigants’ aim was to “save our planet from disastrous consequences that are building year by year and will be more costly to prevent and stop if we wait.”  Blumenthal also told reporters, “Think tobacco, without the money.”

The complaint alleges that the states and city that brought the suit are suffering and will continue to suffer damage from global warming in the form of heat-related deaths; rises in sea level; degradation of water supplies; damage to the Great Lakes; injuries to agriculture in Iowa and Wisconsin; harm to ecosystems, forests, fisheries, and wildlife; wildfires in California; economic damages; increased risk of abrupt climate change; and “Injury to States’ Interests in Ecological Integrity.”

The companies targeted by the suit are American Electric Power Co., Southern Co., Xcel Energy Inc., Cinergy Corp., and the federal Tennessee Valley Authority.  As evidence that these firms manage and control the emission of carbon dioxide, the complaint uses various past statements and admissions by company spokespersons that global warming is a problem they want to do something about.

Only Xcel, through its subsidiary Northern States Power of Wisconsin, provides electricity to customers in any of the states that have filed suit.  To establish some legal grounds for their federal suit, the complaint includes specific complaints for each state.

Lawsuit Rebuffed by Usual Allies

Some supporters of action to curb carbon dioxide emissions have strongly criticized the suit.  Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, told The New York Times on July 22 she found the suit “slightly perverse.  …  Of course, we need a national program and of course, we need some legislation.  The real question is, does this help you get there?  It’s not clear to me that this lawsuit will help.”

Initial response from newspapers was also unenthusiastic.  The San Jose Mercury News on July 22 called the complaint “a cheap shot” and noted, “Generation by a public utility is about as regulated as an activity can be.  Utilities are not only permitted to produce electricity, they’re also obligated to.  So any ill effects from an operation that has been approved from the local to the federal level can’t be laid at the feet of the utilities alone.”

The Cincinnati Post on July 22 was equally unimpressed.  It satirized Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch’s statement that “It’s imperative that we confront those responsible for unleashing an invader with the power to wreak unspeakable havoc on our climate and to damage, and destroy, our ecosystems” as follows: “Good golly.  If fossil-fueled power plants are that much of a public nuisance, maybe we’d better shut them down right now.  That might reduce Rhode Islanders to living off whatever fish they can catch with a net, but it would take care of that invader.”

Depending on the duration and outcome of procedural matters, the district court can be expected to address the substance of the suit in late 2004 or in 2005.

Margot Wallstrom of Sweden has been promoted in the new European Union Commission to head the commissions communications efforts.  She has been replaced as Environment Commissioner by Stavros Dimas of Greece. 

Dimas, from the Greek conservative party New Democracy, is believed to be less personally committed to environmentalism than Wallstrom.  Recent months had seen Wallstrom argue publicly with Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio of Spain over the economic effects of the Kyoto Protocol.

Dimas appointment has already worried some in Europes powerful green movement.  Under the headline, All hope is lost, the Guardians environment correspondent John Vidal wrote (Aug. 18):

 If the European Commission really wanted to signal that it didn’t give a monkey’s [British slang for couldnt care less] about the environment then it would probably choose as its new environment commissioner an old, rightwing free-marketeer lawyer who used to work for the World Bank and had responsibility for Africa in the bad old 1970s.  Impossible?  Not in the slightest.  Welcome Stavros Dimas, 62, Greek economist, Wall Street banker, and conservative lawyer.  The fragile hopes of Europe‘s mountains, rivers, climate and forests rest on you.

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson strongly criticized the lawsuit recently launched by eight state Attorneys General against several electricity generators for creating a public nuisance by contributing to global warming (Aug. 11).

Samuelson concluded his argument, It’s easy to be against global warming but not easy to be for the things that might control it.  Barring some magical technological breakthrough, lowering U.S. emissions would require some or all of the following: tougher regulation or higher gasoline prices to force drivers into smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles; restrictions on coal-burning power plants; encouragement of nuclear power; expansion of drilling for natural gas and more imports of liquefied natural gas; and regulations or tax penalties to discourage large homes.

No judge should try to impose new policies. These issues belong in the political arena, not the courts.  But even if the United States embraced tough anti-global warming policiesand other industrial countries did the samethe effect would be offset unless developing countries joined.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected that greenhouse emissions will more than triple over the next century under business as usual assumptions.  Virtually all the increase occurs in developing countries.

Spitzer and his allies can’t change any of this. Their suit mainly allows them to advertise themselves to people who don’t know better. Here’s Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal sounding off:

Our lawsuit is a huge, historic first step toward holding companies accountable for these pernicious pollutants that threaten our health, economy, environment, and quality of life now and increasingly in the future.  The eventual effects . . . [will be] increasing asthma and heat-related illnesses, eroding shorelines, floods and other natural disasters, loss of forests and other precious resources.

Actually, this contains considerable distortion. In truth, no one knows how much the world will warm, exactly when or with what consequences.  Any self-respecting judge will dismiss this suitand do more. Because the only point is political self-promotion, the judge ought to require the attorneys general to pay court costs and defendants’ costs from their own pockets. There’s a name for what the attorneys general are making of themselves: a public nuisance.