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Climate Change Heats Up Courtroom

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By TERRY TAMMINEN

Published: October 22, 2007

Most people don't like lawsuits. Even the lawyers I know prefer to settle a dispute long before they see a judge. But when all else fails, our laws and courts are there to protect us, and we shouldn't be shy about defending our rights. And fortunately, that is exactly what is happening with global warming.

For the past two decades, Washington has created much noise but no real action to stop global warming. Proposal after proposal - from more efficient cars and trucks to market support for renewable energy to international cooperation - has died with hardly a whimper in the political and procedural morass of Congress and the federal bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, our leaders continue to pay out massive subsidies to the oil and coal industries, ensuring that the fossil fuel hole we're in will get deeper for generations to come.

President Bush gets most of the blame for this woeful record, but Democrats have had plenty of opportunity to get something done too, only to fall far short.

Of course, while Washington toils in futility, the rest of the world keeps moving. And so with no national leadership, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have increased, our cars and trucks have become less efficient, new polluting coal plants have opened and sprawling development has continued with more cars, traffic and pollution.

We will have no chance to avert catastrophic climate change if we wait on Washington. And so when all else fails go to court and defend your rights.

In April, a dozen states, led by Massachusetts, landed a legal knockout on the Bush administration in the U.S. Supreme Court. These states want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other sources under the federal Clean Air Act.

The administration sided with a powerful industry coalition by arguing that the act did not provide that authority. The court disagreed, finding that states do indeed have the right to protect their citizens from the dangers of global warming.

In a separate case, federal judge William Session in Vermont found in September that individual states can limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, as California and another eleven states have proposed.

My advice for polluting companies is simple: Settle this problem now, because the legal fight will only get bigger. The lessons of the past are clear: When attorneys general and citizen plaintiffs get going, sooner or later they become a force in courtrooms and, just as importantly, boardrooms.

Tobacco, asbestos, water pollution and air pollution all have resulted in successful lawsuits in which companies would have been far better off to plan solutions than react to expensive litigation.

Terry Tamminen is the author of 'Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction,' the Cullman Fellow for Climate Policy at the New America Foundation, and the former secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency.

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