FILE - A flag hangs on the side of the Andeavor Mandan Refinery in Mandan, N.D., Sept. 6, 2017. Nineteen Republican state attorneys general have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved in a dispute over climate-change lawsuits. FILE - Oil pump jacks in McKenzie County in western N. D., Jan. 14, 2015. Nineteen Republican state attorneys general have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved in a dispute over climate-change lawsuits.
The GOP attorneys contend only the federal government can regulate interstate gas emissions, and states have no power to apply their own laws to a global atmosphere that reaches well beyond their borders. The court filing also contends the climate-related lawsuits could drive up energy costs in other states, including for electricity generated from natural gas.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong derided it as “pure partisan political theater.” And Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called the Republican effort “absurd,” noting the U.S. Supreme Court already has allowed the state’s case to proceed in a Minnesota court. The request from Republican attorneys general is “highly unusual” and more often employed in state disputes over water rights, not “as an attempt to shut down lawsuits by other states,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University in New York.
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