Third party global warming profiteers finally to be addressed by Supreme Court, AG's join

2/8/11, "Kansas, Missouri attorneys general join brief on global warming suits," Kansas Business Journal

"Attorneys general in Kansas and Missouri want the U.S. Supreme Court to put an end to the use of public nuisance lawsuits that target electric utilities thought to contribute to global warming.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Missouri counterpart Chris Koster joined 20 other attorneys general in filing a “friend of the court” brief to the U.S. Supreme Court imploring it render

• greenhouse regulation a political question rather than one solved by litigation.

The brief is sent to the court in an attempt to convince justices, but it has no binding effect. The brief said lawsuits seeking past damages for greenhouse gas emissions and injunctions against future emissions

• undercut state regulatory guidelines crafted
  
• by elected officials.

“Federal courts should not use the common law to confound the political branches’ legislative and administrative processes by establishing emissions policy —

• more likely, multiple conflicting policies —
  

on a piecemeal, ad hoc, case-by-case basis

• under the aegis of federal common law,” the filing reads.

It goes on to say that the question of greenhouse emissions and climate change is better left to political leaders, who ostensibly are

• accountable to the public through elections,
  

rather than the “wrangling of lawyers” in federal courts.

Attorneys general,

• Democrats and Republicans,
  

signed on to the brief, which was submitted to the court on Tuesday.

The court is set to hear a case involving an electric utility that sued Connecticut to solve whether state regulators or private third parties are allowed to seek emission limits on utilities for greenhouse gases.

The Supreme Court decided in December that it will take the case, and hearings are scheduled for April 19.

• Justice Sonia Sotomayor has recused herself from the case.

In Kansas, the construction of a coal-fired electric plant by Sunflower Electric Power Corp. in Holcomb has faced a long and tortured history in the face of opposition from public officials and private parties concerned about the plant’s contribution

• to greenhouse gas emissions.

Sunflower claimed that the plant would meet pollution regulations, and environmental groups have tried through appeals courts to stop further action. Kansas issued a permit for the plant in December, and

• the Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing it."

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Reference: "The secrets 10 (RGGI) states and Wall Street don't want you to know," by Mark Lagerkvist, NJ Watchdog, 7/28/10

• 2/11/11, "No coal, no power, no gas," American Thinker, Jeffrey Folks

via Climate Depot