Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted Friday she joined a brief supporting the California cities in their action.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita wants to stop what he thinks is California’s attempt of establishing climate policy nationwide, and he hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will help.
Todd Rokita, along with 17 other states, filed a brief with the Supreme Court on Thursday, asking the court to overtime an appeals court decision that allows a lawsuit filed by San Francisco and Oakland to remain in state court.
“Hoosiers should not be ruled by the Left Coast,” Todd Rokita said.
Both cities sued to hold several major fossil fuel companies liable for the costs of global climate change. The cities claim in their lawsuit the companies have broken the common law of public nuisance by producing and selling fossil fuels, Rokita said in a news release.
Todd Rokita wrote in the brief that by allowing a case with such national scope to be handled by California state courts, the federal appeals court “thereby excludes other States from the climate-change policymaking process and threatens to undermine the cooperative federalism model our country has long used to address environmental problems.”
In the brief, Rokita argued federal law gives the companies a right to have the claims heard by a federal court, rather than a state court.
States Filing to Prevent Establishing Climate Policy
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming all joined in the brief.
The cities filed suit against ExxonMobil, BP Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell in September 2017. The lawsuit asks the companies to fund a sea level rise abatement program used to build sea walls and other structures to protect public and private property within 6 feet of the current sea level.
By J.D. Davidson | The Center Square
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