Global Warming Nuisance Suits Headed to the Supreme Court?
As CAC has previously discussed (here and here), a coalition of states, individual property owners, and private land trusts have sued in federal court to have certain companies’ greenhouse-gas emissions declared a “public nuisance” because they have contributed to global warming. With a brief filed yesterday by the Acting Solicitor General of the United States supporting Supreme Court review of the issue, it now it looks like this fight may soon end up before the Roberts Court.
The case at issue is American Electric Power (AEP) v. Connecticut, in which a coalition, led by the State of Connecticut, turned its frustration with Washington’s failure to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions into a common-law nuisance action against several of the nation’s largest electric utilities. Under the nuisance principle—one of the oldest in English common law—a property owner may ask the court to stop a defendant who is interfering with the owner’s enjoyment of his own property and, in some circumstances, to force the defendant to pay damages. In the Connecticut case, the plaintiffs thus sought to persuade the court to order the utility companies to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by showing how such gases cause global warming, which in turn was creating increased temperatures, alternating drought and floods, destruction of natural habitats, and corresponding decreases in property values and human health and welfare. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the environmental coalition, and said they could proceed with a lawsuit that seeks to force the utilities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
In response to the Second Circuit decision, the defendants—American Electric Power Co. Inc., Duke Energy Corp., Southern Co. and Xcel Energy Inc.—filed a petition for review with the Supreme Court earlier this month, asking the Court to reject the argument that greenhouse-gas emissions can be addressed through “public nuisance” lawsuits (see Greenwire, Aug. 4). That was certainly no surprise, but the position taken yesterday by the United States came as a bit of a shock for some advocates. Read more »





