Pseudo-Tort Alert!

Wall Street Journal ^ | August 3, 2004 | MICHAEL I. KRAUSS and S. FRED SINGER

[OESY]

...

[S]tates' attorneys general garnered a huge windfall for their treasuries (and for the bank accounts of selected private lawyers) in tort suits against tobacco companies. The suits were invalid as a matter of law, but never mind -- they pressured Big Tobacco to agree, in exchange for shelter from competition, to split future profits with the states. (When private parties do this, it's racketeering.)

...

[T]hey filed a new pseudo-tort intimidation suit against five large electric utilities.

What civil wrong have these defendants committed? They dared to operate 174 power plants, in full compliance with state and federal regulations.

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[T]he moral of this story: Any company can be sued, at any time, for legally doing business, when the AGs decide to regulate by litigation.

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The absurdity is so palpable that it's almost insulting to have to spell it out. CO2 is nontoxic, odorless, colorless and not a "pollutant" under the federal Clean Air Act.

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The AGs' main argument (apart from the breathtaking claim that the provision of energy is, somehow, a "nuisance") is that CO2 contributes to "greenhouse warming."

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The second study examined the disparity between thermometer measurements at the earth's surface, which show a significant warming trend, and temperatures of the lower atmosphere from balloons as well as from satellites; neither show significant atmospheric warming.

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Diverse analyses all point to local contamination of surface-station readings. Maybe all we can say for sure is that airports are warming.

Junk science plus junk law add up to one super-junk case. Voters in their states should remember the AGs' names, and every owner of a CO2-emitting device (a car, an oil furnace, or a mouth) should help relieve them of their addiction to tort suits at the ballot box.

...

[OESY]

Mr. Krauss, a law professor at George Mason, is author of "Fire and Smoke: Government Tort Suits and the Rule of Law" (The Independent Institute, 2001). Mr. Singer, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and co-author of the cited scientific studies, was director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service.

[nothingnew]

I have updated my FMCDH sign-off with the addition of (BITS).....Blood In The Streets, which I foresee coming soon, due to the enormous increase of the communist progressive movement being shoved down the throat of this failing REPUBLIC through the Judicial tyranny of fiat law, and the passing of unconstitutional laws by the Legislative and Executive branches of our government.

FMCDH(BITS)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I expect the pharmaceutical industry will be next.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

The deconstruction of America as an industrial power.