[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: A Novel Tactic on Warming

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A Novel Tactic on Warming

July 28, 2004
 


 

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. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/28/opinion/28wed1.html?ex=1092041360&ei=1&en=b8adc1dad14d43eb


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