Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments April 19 in a case that will decide whether states and private groups can sue utilities for their greenhouse gas emissions.
Additional legal briefs are due Monday in the case of American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, which already was joined by seven other states, New York City and three land trusts.
They are suing five utilities, saying they created a “public nuisance” by violating federal Clean Air Act limits on their emissions.
Environmentalists say the Supreme Court’s decision on whether states, cities and private groups even have a right to sue will have a dramatic effect on the nation’s efforts to stop global warming.
A decision saying public interest groups and local governments can sue is likely to unleash a flood of lawsuits that would increase the courts’ authority over emissions.
A ruling for the utilities would mean only the federal government can clamp down on how they operate.
The environmentalists already have won before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a 2009 ruling.
The power companies appealed to the Supreme Court. A decision is expected by July.
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman filed a brief for New York City and state governments of California, Connecticut, Iowa, Rhode Island and Vermont.
“Climate change threatens our economy, our health and our natural resources,” Schneiderman said. “This lawsuit protects New Yorkers and our environment from the serious harms caused by unrestrained greenhouse gas pollution. As some of the biggest global warming polluters in the country, these five companies produce 10 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions. To protect our future, we must have the right to hold these polluters accountable in a court of law.”
Utilities named in the lawsuit are American Electric Power Co., Cinergy Corp., Southern Co., the Tennessee Valley Authority and Xcel Energy Inc.
Two states – New Jersey and Wisconsin – have dropped out of the lawsuit since the dispute started in 2004.
Three land trusts, the Audubon Society of New Hampshire, Open Space Institute and Open Space Conservancy, also are suing the utilities.
Business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major oil companies, are staunchly opposed to broader court authority over pollution.
They said in amicus briefs that judges would enforce a patchwork of rulings against them that ultimately would hurt businesses and the nation’s economy.
American Electric Power Co. made the same kind of argument in its brief, which says allowing public nuisance claims against utilities would authorize lawsuits “by anyone who claims to be affected by climate change against any source of greenhouse gas emissions. It would empower courts to determine the ‘reasonable’ level of global greenhouse gas emissions, allocate them among economic sectors, and order individual actors to conform their emissions to the court’s judgments.”
As a result, judges would be able to override authority that should rest with the Environmental Protection Agency, American Electric Power’s brief says.
The utility’s lawyers cited previous federal court rulings in saying, “These issues are wholly inappropriate for resolution by an unelected, unrepresentative judiciary … under the vague and indeterminate nuisance concepts of the common law.”
The Tennessee Valley Authority argues that allowing public nuisance lawsuits against polluters is impractical..
“… virtually every person, organization, company, or government across the globe also emits greenhouse gases, and virtually everyone will also sustain climate-change-related injuries,” the Tennessee Valley Authority’s brief says.
The EPA was set to announce new greenhouse gas reporting requirements for large polluters by March 31, but has delayed the date.
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