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For those of you for whom reading the news and tabloid reports about the oral argument before the US Supreme Court in AEP et al v. Connecticut et al on April 19, 2011, was not enough, we attach the full unofficial transcript here. 

Eileen Millett is  Counsel to the law firm of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. where she represents clients on environmental matters, including solid and hazardous waste and the Clean Water Act,  and counsels clients on general regulatory compliance questions, including issues related to toxic waste and water quality, permitting, emerging obligations under impending climate regulations and other federal, state, and local environmental statutes and regulations.  Ms. Millett previously served as Assistant Counsel with the Hazardous Waste Task Force at NYDEC and as General Counsel to the Interstate Environmental Commission, a tri-state water and air quality enforcement authority, where she conducted and managed litigation to control and abate water pollution and ensure adequate water and sewer infrastructure.  She teaches environmental law at the Syracuse University College of Law. 

Is the EPA over regulating and hurting business? Has EPA lagged behind in regulating Greenhouse Gases? The right answer depends on who you ask. But in deciding American Electric Power v. Connecticut the United States Supreme Court may indeed transform the way we produce and obtain energy. The case concerns the right of states and private parties to sue electric utilities under public nuisance theory for contributing to global warming. The United States Supreme Court will be asked to consider whether the plaintiffs have standing to bring the case, or whether the case presents a non-justiciable political question. In ordinary parlance, on standing — is there a connection between the utilities emissions’ and the injuries alleged, or does the causal chain depend on independent actions of others, and will the remedy sought, by itself, slow or reduce global warming; on political question —is the legislature and the Executive branches doing their jobs in a such a way that the Constitution envisions, making judicial intervention inappropriate. Said another way should we be about the business of sanctioning judicially engineered solutions to caps.

On April 19, 2011 in an expanded argument before only eight judges,with Justice Sotomayer recusing herself, six states, New York City and three private land trusts, sought an injunction in the form of an order to compel the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and then to compel the reduction of those emissions from six major power producers, who they claimed, were the five largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the United States. 

By agreeing to take this case the U.S. Supreme Court is sending a strong signal that they will likely overrule this greenhouse gas public nuisance case, since they ignored the U.S. Solicitor General, who urged the Court to vacate the circuit decision, remand the case to the district court and to take note of the administration’s push to regulate. All this fuss, because states and private parties believe that power companies are creating a public nuisance by emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs) that contribute to global warming. Some states clearly feel that tracking and reporting requirements imposed by EPA do not go far enough, and what better time than now to place caps on emissions and reduce them. Proponents focused on reducing global warming mounted a multi-prong strategy to strike at the administration, Congress and the courts. The administration has indeed made efforts, but a change in the political climate, has diminished what was once a top priority. The House passed a bill that would have established a cap and trade program, but no law was enacted as the Senate could not agree on a proposal. EPA did enact some regulation, but obviously not enough to mollify the states; EPA’s regulation requires monitoring, reporting and registering, after which EPA will release that information to the public and enable us to see who indeed, are the largest emitters of carbon dioxide. These requirements will culminate in a national database and will enable EPA to establish a baseline. The question pending before the court is whether it is appropriate for the courts to step in. 

The District Court felt that the courts were not the appropriate forum. The Southern District Court of New York dismissed states and non-state plaintiffs (New York City and the private land trusts) complaint, holding that the plaintiffs’ claims would require the court to engage in the sort of balancing of competing public policy concerns that are the province of Congress and the President, and therefore presented a non-justiciable political question.  On appeal, a two-judge panel of the Second Circuit (the panel originally included Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was elevated to the Supreme Court during the pendency of the case) vacated the district court’s dismissal and remanded the matter. The Second Circuit pointed to the lack of a detailed legislative or executive branch policy as evidence that courts could adjudicate such cases without interfering with the prerogatives of the political branches. Moreover, the court held that the obvious political ramifications of any decision that a court might render in the case did not necessarily transform the issue into a “political question.” The appellate court held that both the states and non-state plaintiffs could assert public nuisance. In particular, the non-state plaintiffs could assert such claims because of the widespread, interstate nature of the harm alleged. Finally, the Circuit held that the plaintiffs’ claims were not displaced by the Clean Air Act. Walking a fine land between the Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497(2007), which held that EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide as an air pollutant, and the principle that federal common law is displaced when Congress has spoken directly to a particular issue, the appellate court held that at least until EPA takes some specific regulatory action — beyond its proposed (but not final finding that GHGs endanger public health and welfare) —the statute does not regulate greenhouse gas emissions, or does not regulate such emissions from stationary sources. The day after the Second Circuit issued its opinion, EPA promulgated its Final Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Rule. 

Before the Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA had insisted that Congress had not given it the authority to deal with global warming, and EPA had cast doubt on the connection between GHGs and global warming, however, the Supreme Court ruling in case of Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, and granting certiorari in American Electric Power v. Connecticut demonstrates that the court is very willing to weigh in on climate change, or at a minimum provide some direction on the appropriate vehicle for such decision making.

The Supreme Court has for decades recognized a federal common law nuisance right, but has said that if Congress passes specific legislation that seeks to protect the public health and safety, the courts may and probably will have to allow those remedies to work in place of court crafted mandates. The states are seeking a policy outcome that the administration, Congress and EPA have not been willing to adopt. The outcome of American Electric Power v. Connecticut will have implications for two other common law public nuisance cases grounded in common law tort claims and alleging damage from climate change. Comer v. Murphy Oil, USA, 609 F.3d 1049 (5^th Cir. 2010), and Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp. 663 F.Supp.2d 863 (N.D. Cal. 2009).

The tone and tenor of the questioning a couple of weeks ago suggests that the court may well rule that EPA’s regulations of GHGs leaves no room for federal common law nuisance, which would invalidate any attempts to use federal common law nuisance to challenge GHG emissions, which leaves state common law nuisance, the CAA, amending the CAA and EPA regulating. Given that regulations are subject to ongoing legal challenges, climate change law may be uncertain for some time to come. Some have gone so far as to say that the CAA was not designed for the complexities of climate change. If you agree that the current vehicles available to us are inadequate to the task, we could be looking toward new legislation that will require attorneys to gear up and become knowledgeable at this evolving area of law so critically important to our energy needs.

If Theodore J. Lowi, the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions, teaching in the Government Department at Cornell University, one day decides to again update his classic study of American Government, End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States, he could find further validation for his book's thesis in the compelling article by Ryan Lizza, "As The World Burns: How the Senate and the White House missed their best chance to deal with Climate Change", which appeared in New Yorker Magazine (October 11, 2010).  Mr. Lizza describes  how an unlikely coalition comprised of Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman (which came to be known as the "K.G.L") came tantalizingly close to putting together a bipartisan climate change bill, but failed in the end for several reasons. 

In End of Liberalism, Lowi examines how the American Republic has grown to gargantuan size without the necessary self-examination or  recognition that this growth has been fueled by delegation of power to interest groups. According to Lowi, Congress's delegation of its responsibility to govern to administrative agencies has led in turn to an unwholesome process of accommodation in which regulatory agencies become virtual captives of interest groups.  Lowi called this tendency "clientelism".  New governmnental policies have only served to tighten the vice-like grip of interest groups over the machinery of government. 

In preparing his article, Mr. Llzza asked former Vice President Al Gore why he thought the K.G.L. climate change legislation  failed.  The first reason given was Republican partisanship; the second reason was the Great Recession.  However, Mr. Gore's  third explanation for the legislation's failure pinpointed how Kerry, Graham and Lieberman approached the issue and is emblematic of our Congress' failure to take up necessary legislation in many areas, not merely in the environmental arena.  Mr. Gore stated:

 "The influence of special interests is now at an extremely unhealthy level.  And it's to the point where it's virtually impossible for participants in the current political system to enact any significant change without first seeking and gaining permission from the largest commercial interests who are most affected by the proposed change."

Professor Lowi, are you listening?

Two wonderfully researched “must” reads for a better understanding of the debate over climate change are Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming by James Hoggan (Greystone Books 2009) and The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth by Eric Pooley (Hyperion 2010). Told from different perspectives, these books explain the global debate about climate change and identify the important players on all sides of the issue.  James Hoggan sets a provocative tone for his book from his opening metaphor: 

We are standing at the edge of a cliff. Behind us is a considerable crowd, 6.7 billion people and counting, and below is a beckoning pool. Some people say that you can jump into that pool without risk. They say that humans have been doing so for ages without any problems. But others say that waves have been eating away at the foot of the cliff, causing big rocks to fall into the water. They say that the risk of jumping grows more frightening by the day. Whom do you trust?

That’s a tricky question because here, on the climate change cliff, some of the lifeguards are just not that qualified, some have forgotten entirely whose interests they are supposed to protect, and some seem quite willing to sacrifice the odd swimmer (or the whole swim team) if they think there is a good profit to be made in the process. That’s what this book is about: lousy lifeguards – people whose lack of training, conflicts of interest, or general disregard have put us all at risk of storming off the cliff like so many apocryphal lemmings. 

What is exciting about Eric Pooley and James Hoggan’s work is that they bring the reader up-to-date concerning an ongoing struggle that requires sound scientific thinking and the best leadership that our country can provide. Everyone recognizes that climate change poses an enormous problem for our future, but there has been to date a disturbing lack of political willpower to address it.

CNN reported not too long ago that Frank Mitloehner, an air quality specialist from the University of California at Davis, accused the authors of a 2006 report published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization ("FAO"), titled "Livestock's Long Shadow", of skewing scientific data to grossly exaggerate the impact of livestock farming on climate change and, at the same time, underplaying the impact of climate change caused by transport.  As the debate over the legitimacy of certain climate change science continues to swirl in both scientific and academic as well as policy making circles, it is vitally important to avoid politicization of the science.  Politics may be unavoidable when policymakers' decisions on climate change will have a likely impact over time of tens of billions, but every effort should be made to keep the science on the straight and narrow.  That is why this article and the underlying FAO report is disturbing. The 2006 report claims that meat production is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions  world-wide (greater than impact of transport). The report goes on to claim that livestock farming occupies a whooping 30 percent of the world's surface and that its environmental impact will double by 2050 unless drastic action is taken now.  Who knew?  Frank Mitloehner contends the U.N. reached its conclusions for the livestock sector by adding up emissions from farm to table, including the gases produced by growing animal feed; animals' digestive emissions; and processing meat and milk into foods. The U.N. also downplayed climate change caused by transport by failing to add up emissions from well head to steering wheel, and only considered  emissions from fossil fuels burned while driving. In fact, leading authorities agree raising animals for food accounts for about 3 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., while transportation creates an estimated 26 percent.  Mitloehner's clarification must have brought about sighs of relief from U.S. beef associations, who were no doubt concerned about their member companies being tagged with responsibility for Hurricane Katrina's damage in Louisiana and Mississippi and the loss of sea ice in Kivaluna in the Northwest!  Meanwhile, environmentalists and campaigners including Paul McCartney, used the U.N.'s findings to urge consumers to eat less meat and save the planet with slogan:  "Less meat = less heat."  Sadly, once an icon in children's literature, Old McDonald's Farm, is no longer the innocent "EIEIO" of toddler rhyme, but a potential malefactor with inadequate insurance coverage to boot. 

Two electrifying Circuit Court of Appeals cases handed down in 2009 may set the stage for climate change litigation in the years to come. The decisions are Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., et al., 582 F.3d 309 (2d Cir. 2009) and Comer v. Murphy Oil USA, et al., 585 F.3d 855 (5^th Cir. 2009). In both cases, the Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the federal district court and held that the plaintiffs had pleaded adequate facts to permit their cases to proceed. Therefore, unless the United States Supreme Court weighs in and reverses this growing momentum in climate change litigation, it is likely that federal trial courts will be grappling with all of the issues surrounding climate change liability, not least of which will be the science. Did defendant oil and coal producers, chemical companies and coal-using companies bring down the wrath of Hurricane Katrina on the Mississippi plaintiffs? What scientific evidence will be marshaled by plaintiffs to support their allegations? These are the questions that the Comer court will have to grapple with. The very idea that a corporate entity could be found legally responsible for unleashing the catastrophic power of a hurricane would have been unthinkable even ten years ago. Leaving aside epochal issues of public policy, justiciability and theology, the science surrounding climate change litigation will figure prominently in these lawsuits. 

An excellent article on scientific issues in climate change litigation, Issues of Proof in Climate Change Litigation, by Francis J. Menton, a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, appeared in The New York Law Journal (12/29/09).  Mr. Menton’s discourse, commencing with the issuance in 2001 of the Third Assessment Report (“TAR”) from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) and bringing us up-to-date, reads like a Dan Brown conspiracy thriller, replete with conflicting claims and allegations of scientific fraud, data distortion, revelations by whistle blowers, and spoliation of evidence. On the one hand, the climate change plaintiffs allege that there exists a “clear scientific consensus that global warming has begun and that most of the current global warming is caused by emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion.” On the other hand, there are those who deny that there is any consensus and that the entire hypothesis of human-caused or “anthropogenic” global warming is an “urban myth.” Undoubtedly, there will be Daubert–driven debates on both general and specific causation in the global warming litigation.