Isra-Mart srl : Supreme Court carbon emissions hearing off to tense start

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The US Supreme Court began its landmark hearing yesterday on whether to allow individual states to impose limits on power plant carbon emissions.

The Court is considering whether to allow six American states and the city of New York to sue utilities as a "public nuisance", on the grounds that their carbon emissions contribute to global warming.
The case reached the Supreme Court after an appeals court ruled in favour of the states behind the legal action. If the Supreme Court upholds that decision, it would be the first time that state and local governments would be able to sue utilities to make them curb carbon emissions.

The case got underway with the petitioners - the five utilities trying to get the appeals decision overturned - presenting their arguments against the ruling.

Firstly they said that the lawsuits should be thrown out owing to the prudential limitation of generalised grievance, arguing that global warming is caused by, and affects, so many parties that it is not relevant to draw a direct causal link between the defendants' actions and a specific effect on the plaintiff.

"The very name of the alleged nuisance, 'global warming', itself tells you much of what you need to know," said Neal Kumar Katyal, acting solicitor general for the Department of Justice, speaking on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority. "There are billions of emitters of greenhouse gasses on the planet and billions of potential victims as well."

The utilities also argued that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was effectively dealing with the need for carbon regulations already, thanks to rules that came into effect in January imposing the use of the most effective emission-limiting technology when modifying power plants.

The defence also pointed out that the EPA has a settlement agreement under which it must decide whether to fully regulate carbon emissions by May next year.

However, the EPA itself is facing a series of court cases and Congressional votes aimed at overturning its emissions rules.

The states maintain that current federal efforts to curb emissions are insufficient and as such they are entitled to label carbon intensive firms a "public nuisance" and take legal action against them.