Obama Admin Urges Supreme Court to Vacate Greenhouse Gas ‘Nuisance’ Ruling
By GABRIEL NELSON of Greenwire
The Obama administration has urged the Supreme Court to toss out an appeals court decision that would allow lawsuits against major emitters for their contributions to global warming, stunning environmentalists who see the case as a powerful prod on climate change.
In the case, AEP v. Connecticut, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a coalition of states, environmental groups and New York City. The decision, handed down last year, said they could proceed with a lawsuit that seeks to force several of the nation’s largest coal-fired utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
The defendants — American Electric Power Co. Inc., Duke Energy Corp., Southern Co. and Xcel Energy Inc. — filed a petition for review with the Supreme Court earlier this month, asking the court to reject the argument that greenhouse gas emissions can be addressed through “public nuisance” lawsuits (Greenwire, Aug. 4).
In a brief (pdf) filed yesterday on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority, acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal agreed with the defendants, saying that U.S. EPA’s newly finalized regulations on greenhouse gases have displaced that type of common-law claim.
Katyal urged the court to vacate the decision and remand the case to the 2nd Circuit for further proceedings, this time taking into account the administration’s push to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
The 2nd Circuit’s decision rested on the assertion that “EPA does not currently regulate carbon dioxide,” but that has since changed. The Obama administration has finalized several regulations in response to the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which told the agency to decide whether greenhouse gases were pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
…
Matt Pawa, an attorney representing plaintiffs in the case, said he and his colleagues expected the White House to stay out of the matter. During a meeting with more than 30 administration lawyers at the solicitor general’s office on June 24, it seemed they had “a lot of friends in the room,” he said.
“We feel stabbed in the back,” Pawa said. “This was really a dastardly move by an administration that said it was a friend of the environment. With friends like this, who needs enemies?”
Top attorneys at environmental advocacy groups are buzzing about the brief, sources say. Some feel betrayed by a White House that has generally been more amenable to environmental regulation than its predecessor.
“This reads as if it were cut and pasted from the Bush administration’s briefing in Massachusetts,” said David Bookbinder, who served as the Sierra Club’s chief climate counsel until his resignation in May.
read the entire story here at the NYT
It occurs to me that the administration no longer wishes to cripple the economy by cutting it in half.
He now wishes to limit the damage by merely cutting its head off.
Dr. Schnare, thanks for the tip, I just scanned through your document:
Testimony Before the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Washington, D.C. Wednesday, September 26, 2007
“Responses to Climate Change and their Implications on Preservation and Restoration of the Chesapeake Bay”
—–
I’m glad you had the chance to meet Sen. Inhofe, I’ve known him since his first campaign for Congress (1st District, Tulsa OK).
You come out very strong for geoengineering!! I can’t agree with you less. Cheers.
“The Obama administration has urged the Supreme Court to toss out an appeals court decision that would allow lawsuits against major emitters for their contributions to global warming, stunning environmentalists who see the case as a powerful prod on climate change.”
The Obama regime want the energy companies taxed until the pips squeak so to speak, this means the price of energy must rise sharply, very sharply. If the energy companies are forced to go to court then their lawyers will be forced to open the real books on AGW, every tiny detail and every temperature record,every political connection and every record of connivance between the political establishment and the green/eco establishment and a corrupted media using shadowy groups like the NUJ/SEJ/UCS and journolist.
The lavish funding of pro AGW organisations will be examined and the the emails/written records will be trawled through, its one giant can of worms folks and the last thing that the political establishment needs is a court case exposing all the dirty little secrets/back stairs deals/corruption/dodgy science with the green establishment in court forced to explain the many secrets they hold.
The AGW circus was a fake construct with foundations built on the softest of sands, a rickety Jerry built house of cards relying on a fake fabricated consensus, any examination in detail will cause the entire edifice to collapse and viewed by the ordinary people who have been lied to for so long, we would find out the whys and wherefores of AGW, the skeletons in the closet would come tumbling out.
Of course we know the cultist wing of the AGW fraud are too stupid to see past their Luddite desire to see us back in a Constable painting but the truly wicked elements that have been pulling the strings know all too well that shining a light on the dark corners would reveal the real puppeteers in this tragicomedy farce.
Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.
“What failed at Copenhagen was not just the summit. A notion of establishing the UN as a sort of world government through the use of climate politics — using far-reaching management methods to influence, first of all, the world’s economy — has also failed.”
(Die Welt -german news paper -Refering to EU President )
No Thanks.
Archaeological remains of a lost city have been discovered 120 feet underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western coast of India. And carbon dating says that they are 9,500 years old. I am sure people in India back then were not driving SUVs or polluting the landmass with use of dirty fuel to cause the sea level to rise and sink their city. So this AGW fraud is just that a fraud. Climate changes by itself you cannot do anything to prevent it. More importantly I will not waste my money towards any effort to prevent climate change. I would use it to adapt to any change that may occur, if it occurs and when it occurs . So no money from me towards aiding and abetting carbon racketeering also known as cap n trade.
M White says:
August 26, 2010 at 12:14 pm
“I know how they can do it.
Shut down at the beginning of December and re-open at the beginning of March.”
Sadly, logic evades the average greenie, so this would make perfect sense to him or her.
I seriously wonder if the average American realises that the EPA nonsense and much of Obamaspeak is telling the world only one thing: the USA is not a good place in which to invest. Very simply, that means fewer jobs created and more exported.
The Obama administration has urged the Supreme Court to toss out an appeals court decision that would allow lawsuits against major emitters for their contributions to global warming, stunning environmentalists who
see the case as a powerful prod on climate change.make a sh**load of money suing us.
Another article caught my eye in that rag.
http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2010/08/23/1
U.S. EPA won’t meet its goal of releasing new nationwide standards for ground-level ozone this month, the agency told a federal court Friday.
The current political climate would make it “convenient” for EPA to release the standards after November’s midterm election, said Howard Feldman, director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Petroleum Institute.
“Given the absence of new or different scientific data, EPA should maintain the current ozone standards,” the letter said. “Moving to change the standard again, outside of the Clean Air Act’s normal five-year review process, as local communities are struggling to meet the existing standard, would be unfair and unwise
End
It doesn’t look good if they are deliberately delaying it.
The EPA and the Executive branch are staking out there turf… and no one else will be allowed to play there.
So the greenies get whacked… not suprising, – there was no way that the government was going to tolerate other feeders at the trough.
For the rest of us, we just got out of the frying pan and are now about to meet the fire.
The teeth gnashing of communists always sounds good
Well said, u.k.(us). The lunatic fringe are giving life-long environmentalists, who are also sceptical of media hype, a bad name. Time they were stopped.
u.k.(us) says:
August 26, 2010 at 7:53 pm
“The Obama administration has urged the Supreme Court to toss out an appeals court decision that would allow lawsuits against major emitters for their contributions to global warming, stunning environmentalists who see the case as a powerful prod on climate change.”
================
Rather ironic, that the environmentalists get stunned by the same prod they intended to use.
Talk about a climate change.
We, on the dark side, are also environmentalists.
Yet, proceed from caution.
Soooo….What happens if the lawsuit is allowed through?
This is not the World courts and have no bearing on entitlements in other countries. Mind you, Canada could sue the U.S. for allowing the pollutants over the boarders when there is a south wind.
Oil taps could be shut off to the U.S. if lawsuits are going to be the norm for anyone shipping “pollutant materials”.
Ever hear of the sucker punch, Clinton was a master at it. When people complain too much back off , the opposition relaxes then do it. It could be the election or its a distraction or both.
————–
Djozar,
Maybe NASA’s yearly human resource review process could explain it. My opinion is there has to be some dissatisfaction higher up in NASA’s management regarding the non-professional activities and product deficiencies of some of the GISS boys and girls.
I would not be surprised at some people moving on and more publically skeptical scientists/administrators replacing them.
John