Posted on 08/03/2004 5:29:32 AM PDT by OESY
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[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.)
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[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.
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(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
FMCDH(BITS)
The deconstruction of America as an industrial power.
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