Not only are there 20-something state attorneys general litigating against Obamacare, but now 22 of them have weighed in on a landmark lawsuit in which an electric utility has sought relief from the Supreme Court over eight Northeastern states’ attempt to regulate greenhouse gases via a public nuisance lawsuit. And the AGs are backing the utility — American Electric Power Company — not their Northeastern colleagues:
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Missouri counterpart Chris Koster joined 20 other attorneys general in filing a “friend of the court” brief to the U.S. Supreme Court imploring it render greenhouse regulation a political question rather than one solved by litigation.
The brief is sent to the court in an attempt to convince justices, but it has no binding effect. The brief said lawsuits seeking past damages for greenhouse gas emissions and injunctions against future emissions undercut state regulatory guidelines crafted by elected officials.
In a press release, Schmidt identified how the nuisance suit could affect every state in the country:
“Kansas has a large stake in the outcome of this litigation,” Schmidt said. “An adverse ruling by the Supreme Court could further expose large parts of our state’s economy – from agriculture to manufacturing to petrochemical refining – to further job-killing regulation by litigation.”
Should those Northeast lawyers succeed in convincing the Justices that bureaucrats can regulate mammalian exhalants (carbon dioxide) based on a “nuisance,” then no one can escape the regulatory whims of government.
