Farmers compared to coal-burning utilities
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
If you can take coal-burning utilities to court for creating a public nuisance by contributing to climate change, why not farmers?
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia asked the question in April during a hearing about whether an environmental case against five major U.S. utility companies should proceed.
Six states – California, Connecticut, Iowa, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont – and New York City claim the effects of global warming are harming their residents. They want the companies, which include American Electric Power Co. Inc., Southern Company and Xcel Energy Inc., to slash emissions.
According to Reuters, Justice Scalia broached the subject of farmers when Barbara Underwood, an attorney for the U.S. government, observed that, combined, the utilities account for 10 per cent of the country's carbon dioxide emissions and no other company comes close to that kind of output.
"You're lumping them all together," Reuters quotes Scalia, a Reagan appointee and the longest-serving justice on the court, as saying. "Suppose you lump together all the cows in the country. Would that allow you to sue all those farmers? I mean, don't you have to do it defendant by defendant? . . . Cow by cow or at least farm by farm?"
Scalia took his argument one step further by suggesting that, if all the cows could be lumped together for blame, then why not lump together all the people for exhaling carbon dioxide.
The court planned to rule on the future of the case in June. BF