A Novel Tactic on (Global) Warming

[Guest guest]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/28/opinion/28wed1.html?th

 

July 28, 2004

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.

 

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company