18 states file brief to keep two California cities from setting climate policy for whole nation

By J.D. Davidson | The Center Square

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita wants to stop what he thinks is California’s attempt to establish a nationwide climate change policy, and he hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will help.

Rokita, along with 17 other states, filed a brief with the Supreme Court on Thursday, asking the court to overtime an appeals court decision that allows a lawsuit filed by San Francisco and Oakland to remain in state court.

Both cities sued to hold several major fossil fuel companies liable for the costs of global climate change. The cities claim in their lawsuit the companies have broken the common law of public nuisance by producing and selling fossil fuels, Rokita said in a news release.

“Hoosiers should not be ruled by the Left Coast,” Rokita said.

In the brief, Rokita argued federal law gives the companies a right to have the claims heard by a federal court, rather than a state court.

Rokita wrote in the brief that by allowing a case with such national scope to be handled by California state courts, the federal appeals court “thereby excludes other States from the climate-change policymaking process and threatens to undermine the cooperative federalism model our country has long used to address environmental problems.”

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming all joined in the brief.

Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted Friday she joined a brief supporting the California cities in their action.

The cities filed suit against ExxonMobil, BP Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell in September 2017. The lawsuit asks the companies to fund a sea level rise abatement program used to build sea walls and other structures to protect public and private property within 6 feet of the current sea level.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Ildar Sagdejev

3 thoughts on “18 states file brief to keep two California cities from setting climate policy for whole nation

  1. California setting a climate change agenda for the US.

    ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

    California is totally incapable of doing that, and has proven it several times.

    Various commentators have been blaming the electric grids of California and Texas for the lack of delivery of electricity during unusual weather events. Almost all of these commentators are not energy systems analysts. They often merely echo what they see/hear elsewhere, and are rushed to meet publishing deadlines, and driven by their editors to increase reader attention.

    The grids of California and Texas are not perfect, but neither are other grids in the US and Europe.

    CALIFORNIA

    Newsom and his cabal are extremist proponents of idiotic RE policies, that have driven California to the brink of disaster regarding electricity generation, which has become increasingly unreliable and expensive, just as in Germany and Denmark, which have the highest household electric rates in Europe, by far.

    The long-suffering, over-taxed, over-regulated California people have had enough of Dem/Prog RE shenanigans
    Governor Newsom will be recalled. That is at least several years overdue.

    California imports about 30% of its annual electricity from nearby Southwestern states and from Washington and Oregon to cover any electricity short-falls; it has major connections to those grids. This mode of operation sufficed, until the US southwest had a major, multi-day, heat wave; during heat waves winds are minimal.

    As a result, electricity supplies, from mostly coal-fired plants from Southwestern states, to California were curtailed by the exporting states. The result was rolling black-outs for several days, with 115F temperatures, because, among other RE zealot idiocies, California had closed 15 of its 19 Pacific Coast, low-cost, highly efficient, low-CO2 emitting, minimal-polluting gas plants, because they were warming up the Pacific Ocean. The other 4 were due to close down, but that idiocy has been placed on hold, not cancelled.

    None of the above had anything to do with the California transmission and distribution grids.

    The real deficiency was:

    1) A lack of realistic energy policies
    2) A lack of the usual imports during the heat wave
    3) Insufficient spare generating plant capacity, MW, fueled, staffed, ready to serve, at a moment’s notice.
    4) A lack of planning, in case of high electricity demand during heat waves, with minimal wind and minimal imports

    California is making the energy situation even less stable by pushing heat pumps and EVs, while California is shutting down fossil fuel plants and replacing them with wind and solar, and more imports.
    The last remaining nuclear plant will shut down in less than 4 years.

    It won’t be long before California will be importing more than 50% of its electricity. This over reliance on unreliable electricity sources will result in massive electricity shortfalls during the next major heat wave.

    NOTE: Germany, another RE maven, has the same lack of spare capacity, but it has major connections to nearby grids.

    NOTE: New England imports about 19% of its electricity, because it has major connections to New York and Canadian grids.

  2. We could live happily as a nation if we didn’t need to live together in same state as a nation. Tho we can always vote with our feet and leave – we need to be guaranteed our vote to another state will count for them and us. And may the best-run states win…lemme guess… lol
    https://constitution.laws.com/10th-amendment

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