It looks as if environmental groups are actively seeking to convert the court system in the United States into a rubber-stamp machine for their aims and objectives. RealClear Wire reports:
Over 30 lawsuits, modeled after the tobacco cases of the 1990s, have been filed by state, county, and city attorneys against energy companies seeking damages for the alleged effects of greenhouse gas emissions. An important factor in these lawsuits is the role of third-party funding and nonprofit activists working behind the scenes to shape the litigation and influence the courts.
One such organization that has taken center stage is the Environmental Law Institute’s Climate Judiciary Project, which claims to educate judges on climate science and related legal issues. According to the ELI website, the project’s goal is to “provide neutral, objective information to the judiciary about the science of climate change as understood by experts.” Since 1990, the CJP says it has trained more than 3,000 judges across 28 countries.
But judges are supposed to be disinterested arbiters of the facts and the law – and critics point out that on climate issues, the CJP is anything but neutral. In a 12-page report, the American Energy Institute accuses the CJP of “teaching judges about debatable climate science” and compares it to “working over the referees before the game even starts.” AEI contends that the so-called “objective” materials used by the CJP are crafted by activists who either advise the plaintiffs in these cases or support their claims through legal briefs.
AEI also claims that the CJP has ties to many of the plaintiffs suing energy companies. The CJP denies these allegations, telling RealClearPolitics that it “does not participate in litigation, provide support for or coordinate with any parties in litigation, or advise judges on how they should rule in any case.”
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Energy Alliance, also criticized the CJP’s efforts to influence judges before they rule on climate-related cases. She told RealClearPolitics that the connection between nonprofit groups, judges, and attorneys involved in these cases forms a “tangled web” of “foundation activist groups, law professors, and judges attempting to use lawsuits to enact climate change policy.”
“The Environmental Law Institute, through its Climate Judiciary Project, is trying to control the entire process – from who’s suing, what they’re suing for, to what judges think about it,” she continued.
There's more at the link.
This is a tried and tested method. The EPA and other radicalized agencies of government have used it far too often, to implement legal and regulatory powers they could not get through Congress. The process works something like this:
1. The government agency makes a grant to one or more non-governmental organizations (NGO's) to do a particular thing.
2. The NGO sues the government, claiming that it has to protect that thing (butterflies, or fish, or whatever). Adding insult to injury, it uses the government grant money to do so.
3. The (usually sympathetic) judge, sometimes "trained" in the subject through "courses" offered by an NGO, indicates that he's going to rule in the plaintiff's favor.
4. A consent decree is agreed between NGO's and the government, and made an order of court by the judge, in effect forcing the government to do what the NGO wants (including budgeting whatever funds are needed to implement and monitor the consent decree).
5. The government, and taxpayers, are now on the hook for that expense in perpetuity, unless the court order is modified or overturned. At no time did lawmakers get the opportunity to debate the issue or pass laws about it: they were completely sidestepped by the court process.
If environmental groups can't get their way democratically, they'll do it through lawfare, using the courts to force the rest of us to toe their line. I think President Trump is going to have to crack down hard on this - but what about existing court orders? Can they be overturned? That's a head-scratcher.
Peter
3 comments:
The problem is, there are no facts in these cases. Yes, the so-called world average temperature is going up. But, the measurement of the world average temperature is subject to an error range of at least plus or minus 1 F. That means that the so-called increase over the last 100 year of less than 1 F is within the error range.
And, if the average world temperature is really increasing, what is causing that increase ? And why are the rest of the planets in the Solar System increasing their temperatures also ? I do not trust any of these models that these co-called climate scientists are creating. The models should be able to run forwards and backwards hundreds of years without going crazy. Yet, all of the models go crazy after a decade or two.
And the amount of energy hitting the Earth from Sol is a constant in these models. There is nothing constant in real life ! Especially a huge fusion reactor (the only working fusion reactor in the Solar System) at the center of the Solar System. That is an incredibly complicated device that uses natural circulation to move the incredibly hot plasma from the center of the reactor to the surface of the reactor. It has huge storms and currents that astronomers continuously wonder at and cannot predict whatsoever.
I think this one is also on Trump et al's radar, for a LOT of reasons!
If the incoming administration is going to try to get rid of the bloated government overreach, this is among the biggest targets there is. Courts and Three Letter Agencies like the EPA are not supposed to make laws; that's what congress is there for, but these agencies make regulations that have the power of federal law. By passing the power to make those laws off to the TLAs, congress escapes accountability. At best, it's unconstitutional. Instead of "Rule of Law", it's Rule by Lawyers.
Having congress make laws is why we elect representatives as often as we do. If they make stupid laws, we vote them out.
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