Climate Change Bill Could Create a ‘Lawsuit Landslide’ … Oh Goody!
BY: NCViking
The windfall over this Global Warming Climate Change scam is expanding to include the Democrats #1 donor group – Trial Lawyers. A bill in the House by Henry Waxman and Edward Ma(la)rkey would allow supposed current or future (according to models) victims of Climate Change to sue for damages. What? I guess if I am ever lucky enough to pass a kidney stone I can sue the ‘big oil’ brutes and/or the feds for making me suffer. Yes, kidney stones are supposedly aggravated by CC. Getting a divorce? Married couples in Florida may soon sue you for causing the next hurricane. Have more than two kids? Expect to be served, you carbon junkie!
Excerpts from WaPo (follow the link for the full article):
Self-proclaimed victims of global warming or those who “expect to suffer” from it – from beachfront property owners to asthmatics – for the first time would be able to sue the federal government or private businesses over greenhouse gas emissions under a little-noticed provision slipped into the House climate bill.
Environmentalists say the measure was narrowly crafted to give citizens the unusual standing to sue the U.S. government as a way to force action on curbing emissions. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sees a new cottage industry for lawyers.
“You could be spawning lawsuits at almost any place [climate-change modeling] computers place at harm’s risk,” said Bill Kovacs, energy lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Under the House bill, if a judge rules against the government, new rules would have to be drafted to alleviate the problems associated with climate change. If a judge rules against a company, the company would have to purchase additional “carbon emission allowances” through a cap-and-trade program that is to be created by Congress.
The measure sets grounds for anyone “who has suffered, or reasonably expects to suffer, a harm attributable, in whole or in part,” to government inaction to file a “citizen suit.” The term “harm” is broadly defined as “any effect of air pollution (including climate change), currently occurring or at risk of occurring.”
“Perhaps a more accurate title of the bill would be ‘The Lawyer Full-Employment and As-Seen-on-TV Global Warming Act of 2009,’ ” said Larry Neal, deputy Republican staff director for the House committee.
Democratic staffers said the measure provides guidance to the courts on how to apply existing Clean Air Act provisions. Private citizens can sue the government based on harm caused by pollutants currently regulated under the Clean Air Act – including nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide – but they lack standing to sue for damages resulting from climate change.
Regulating carbon dioxide has been a hard slog for environmentalists, and some energy analysts say that the Waxman-Markey bill and parallel efforts by the Obama administration constitute a multifaceted attempt to achieve the goal by regulation if legislative attempts fail.
The “citizen suit” would allow people to force government action on climate change, seemingly a redundancy in a bill that would achieve that goal if passed. But environmentalists have been cautious in their tack, arguing that many environmental protections on the books were not vigorously enforced under the Bush administration.
Expansion of the Clean Air Act to allow “citizen suits” on climate change has been a goal among environmental groups and moderate to liberal Democrats for many years – although the measure has never succeeded.
This is absolutely ridiculous! Where will this end?
Good point from HotAir:
Most of the activists are less concerned about actual climate change than they are about having an excuse to nationalize energy production, along with everything else. They stopped listening to “science” a long time ago, as soon as they heard enough to justify confiscatory government policies, and have tried to quash all other lines of inquiry with the same enthusiasm as the medieval Inquisitions, and with the same motivation — power.
That pizza delivery guy better be drivin’ a green car made of hemp, powered by hippie sweat … or I’ll sue!
MON DIEU!!

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This pizza delivery guy’s car often used to smell of hemp. I never thought to blame fuel
This sound like it could be easy for me to sign on to instead of opposing it on idealogic grounds. I have been thinking for years: “how can I find a way to stop working, but yet maintain a steady income to fund my life.” I never knew that I could look to everything that woes me and then blame it on man-made, catostrophic,
global warmingclimate change.Heavy traffic on the interstate? Sue the Department of Transporation for gridlock caused by poor road construction and causing additional smog.
How about the DMV? Lines are so long there, people breathing out causing so much CO2 that the plants can not handle it. See, I could sue the state as well!
What about all that Hot Air coming from Congress? That has led to depression, which leads to me doing nasty carbon-footprint stuff… like BBQ, driving, and arson. I never knew that this was not my fault.
Maybe we can find a lawyer to help me out.
Interesting piece. Wonder if anybody has seen what the other side is saying about “citizen suits,” and if so, what you think. http://tinyurl.com/c3f4hg
I think the difference is in the harm. We know dumping mercury in our water supply causes harm, but something as nebulous as CO2 causing harm is inconclusive, and we know CO2 is certainly beneficial to nature. The empirical evidence does not support the theory of global warming due to anthropogenic CO2 and there is no correlation between CO2 and violent weather from nature. We are also mere neophytes when it comes to understanding the earth and it’s climate and trying to change this climate through actions like cap-and-trade are a very expensive act of complete futility. The only benefit I see is that maybe debate in a courtroom to defend a civil lawsuit for harm due to some hurricane would be good, since debate in the public is being squelched by politics and agendas. When the CC theory is tested against the evidence, it fails miserably.
There was a time when having a kidney stone was as dreaded like hving a heart attack. Thanks to the improvements in medical facilities, more and easy solutions to deal with kidney stones have been made possible. But by all means, proper treatment under the guidence of the right doctor is a must in getting cured quickly.
it is very evident that climate change is already taking effect in this decade~-,
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