U.S. Supreme Court to hear key global warming case

US Supreme Court to hear key global warming case
A view of the US Supreme Court in Washington DC. The Supreme Court said Mon... In a move that could significantly impact the US approach to fighting Climate Change, the top court in the coming months will consider a lower ruling that allows states and environmental groups to sue utility companies under federal public nuisance law to make them reduce their greenhouse Gas Emissions. US federal law already provides a system to regulate Greenhouse Gases, but the appeals court ruling in favor of the...

Supreme Court to hear global warming case - Robin Bravender
The U.S. Supreme Court will take on another landmark Global Warming Lawsuit, the High Court announced today. The court will hear an appeal next year from electric utilities in the high-profile American Electric Power v. Connecticut case. Power companies are challenging a lower court ruling that allowed states and environmental groups to move ahead with a public nuisance lawsuit seeking to force the utilities to slash their greenhouse Gas Emissions. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset POLIT...

High court will hear Wal-Mart sex-bias case
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider whether to keep alive the largest employment Discrimination Lawsuit in U.S. history, a case that claims Wal-Mart pays women less than men and promotes women less frequently. The justices stepped into a dispute that could involve billions of dollars in back pay for 500,000 to 1.5 million women who work or once worked at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest Private Employer. But the case also could affect other class-acti...

Is The EPA Confrontational Enough?
Here's a quick sketch of how environmental policy will get made for the next two years. Congress won't pass any new laws. The EPA will try to use the authority it already has to mop up Pollution from coal plants, factories, and vehicles (and the agency has a fair bit of existing authority to do so). Industry groups, Republicans, and more than a few Democrats will moan about the costs. And the Obama Administration will then have to decide just how much confrontation it can really stomach. Any be...

A warning at climate talks: Glacier melt speeding up
CANCUN, Mexico (AP) — The lives and livelihoods of people in South Asia are at "high risk" as Global Warming melts Glaciers in the Himalayas, sending floods crashing down from overloaded mountain lakes and depriving farmers of steady water sources, U.N. and other international experts reported Friday. Worldwide, "since the beginning of the 1980s, the rate of ice loss has increased substantially in many regions, concurrent with an increase in global mean air temperatures," the U.N. Environme...

Don't Teach College Economics Students Global Warming Denial
Think slowing Climate Change will cost a lot of money? Think again. As most Economists will tell you, the costs of not acting to slow Climate Change are far scarier. Unfortunately, you might not realize that if you are a college economics major. In fact, you might not even believe that Climate Change is happening at all. At least that's true if you are studying from one of five popular college economics textbooks that recently received a "Not Recommended " grade in The Sightline Institute's revi...

Climate Researchers Claim Illegal Immigrants Flooding Over Mexican Border to Escape Global Warming
(National Journal)- Just when you think you’ve heard everything, we’re told that impoverished Mexicans are fleeing north to escape Global Warming. Despite the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), vast natural resources and bright, hard-working people, the host country for the Cancun climate summit remains impoverished. Wealth and power are still concentrated in relatively few powerful Mexican families. Employment and economic opportunities are few. The government is plagued with corrupti...

The Supreme Court tales a global warming case....
... with Justice Sonia Sotomayor recusing herself. American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut involves the use of a common law theory of nuisance: [Five companies] that were claimed to be the largest sources of Greenhouse Gases — four electric power companies and the Tennessee Valley Authority — were sued by eight states, New York City, and three land conservation groups... Calling the potential impact of the nuisance theory “staggering,” the companies’ petition s...

Global Warming Goes to Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court will take on another landmark Global Warming Lawsuit, the High Court announced today. The court will hear an appeal next year from electric utilities in the high-profile American Electric Power v. Connecticut case. Power companies are challenging a lower court ruling that allowed states and environmental groups to move ahead with a public nuisance lawsuit seeking to force the utilities to slash their greenhouse Gas Emissions. You must login to comment. The Fox Nation is fo...

Global warming? Cool!, climatologist says
Global warming isn't such a bad thing, a leading Russian climatologist told a conference last week. The effects of rising temperatures will save on heating, increase farm production and open northern sea channels, said Vladimir Klimenko of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, according to a Moscow Times article. On the downside, several Siberian and Far Eastern Russian cities will have to be rebuilt, Klimenko conceded in his report to Russian and German scholars at a conference sponsored...

DECEMBER CO-2 AUCTION SHOWS SURPLUS OF CAP & TRADE WOES
Mark Lagerkvist How low can Northeast cap-and-trade go?  The demand for carbon emission permits dove to new depths at the December auction of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. RGGI managed to sell only 57 percent of the Carbon Dioxide emission permits offered by its 10 participating states.  At past auctions, demand exceeded supply by up to fourfold.  The sale price of CO-2 permits was $1.86 per ton, the minimum allowed and down from $3.51 per ton last year. The underlying problem is

The EPA Versus the USA
It seems almost beyond reason that a single U.S. agency could so hate America that it was prepared to ignore the Constitution, distort a Supreme Court decision, and impose its will on the nation in the name of totally discredited science. That, however, is what the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to do while Americans are distracted by the Christmas celebrations. The agency’s objective is to regulate so-called Greenhouse Gases (GHG) on January 2, 2011. More specifically, it would r...

As last pitch for energy panel, Barton offers detailed battle plan (Daily Caller)
Rep. Joe Barton, Texas Republican, is making his final pitch to head a crucial congressional energy panel as the man truest to conservative principles, offering colleagues a detailed battle plan to take on the Obama Administration on the president’s Health Care law and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pending Global Warming regulations. Barton’s plan comes in the form of answers to a detailed questionnaire sent from the GOP Steering Committee, a panel mostly filled...

Farmington supports appeal of NM emissions rules
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Leaders in one northwestern New Mexico community decided Tuesday to challenge the state's plan for curbing greenhouse Gas Emissions, marking the opening salvo in a Legal Battle that is expected to pit more municipalities and industry groups against state Regulators. Farmington city councilors had met privately with attorneys during a closed session last month and again briefly Tuesday before making their unanimous decision to move ahead with potential litigation. It wa...

FDA Loses Appeal, Can’t Regulate E-Cigarettes as Drug
Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lacks the authority to regulate electronic Cigarettes as drugs or devices, an appeals court ruled, upholding a lower-court decision. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said today the FDA can only regulate e-cigarettes as a Tobacco Product. The ruling means the government can oversee the marketing of the products, not restrict their sale. E-cigarette maker Sottera Inc., which does business as Njoy, argued in the case that its produc...

Rockefeller eyes omnibus to block EPA climate rules
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) is pinning his hopes for blocking Environmental Protection Agency Climate Change rules on the highly uncertain prospect that lawmakers will move a massive omnibus federal spending package this year. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) earlier this year said he would give Rockefeller a vote on the West Virginian's proposal to freeze looming EPA regulations covering Power Plants, refineries and other industrial plants for two years. But Reid has since equivocated, ...

Experts: Glacier melt speeds up, risking lives
CANCUN, Mexico — The lives and livelihoods of people in South Asia are at "high risk" as Global Warming melts Glaciers in the Himalayas, sending floods crashing down from overloaded mountain lakes and depriving farmers of steady water sources, U.N. and other international experts reported. Worldwide, "since the beginning of the 1980s, the rate of ice loss has increased substantially in many regions, concurrent with an increase in global mean air temperatures," the U.N. Environment Program ...

More plants could slow warming: NASA
In a world with twice as much Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, plants could grow larger and create a cooling effect on a warming globe, but could not halt or reverse Climate Change, NASA says. One of the main mysteries scientists face with climate change is how to project it over time, particularly how to account for Earth's reaction to warmer temperatures, a phenomenon known as "feedback." It has long been known that plants -- which use carbon dioxide, sun and water to grow through the process...

Supreme Court takes global warming case that targets power companies
A Global Warming Lawsuit aiming to force power companies to curtail Carbon Emissions will come before the Supreme Court next year. The suit asks for a judicial order to that effect, but would such a move usurp role of other government branches?...

A cold anniversary: Polluted EPA at 40
Last week was the 40th anniversary of Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to its founding, chemical waste was indiscreetly poured into lakes and rivers. In 1969, Cleveland's Cuyahoga River started on fire. And that wasn't even the first time it happened. That year, in our first Family Vacation trip to the east, we drove over many rivers, including the Cuyahoga, and my brother asked my father every time we crossed one, "Is this river polluted?" "Yes," was his reply every time. Air, lakes, an...

High Court to Hear Global Warming, Discrimination Cases
By Ashby Jones It was a big Monday morning down at the U.S. Supreme Court. The big news came not in the form of opinions, but in announcements that the court plans to hear two high-profile cases, cases that are likely to be among the most high-profile of the term. For starters, the court will take a closer look at this idea that industry can and should be held liable for adding to the global-warming crisis. Click here for the early AP story. The case consists of an appeal from electric utilitie...

On Climate Treaties and Christmas Trees
CANCÚN, Mexico - On Monday night, Michael Zammit Cutajar, one of the most important figures in two decades of negotiations aimed at a global agreement to avoid dangerous Climate Change, issued a gentle warning to delegates, officials and other attendees attending a discussion I moderated on social impacts of climate change: Keep track of the difference between a climate treaty and a Christmas Tree. Here’s what the process of decorating a tree looks like: . Zammit Cutajar hopes this wo...

Climate effort 'insufficent': Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called the world's efforts to contain Climate Change "insufficient" and urged countries meeting in Cancun, Mexico, to come up with a "breakthrough." "I'm deeply concerned that our efforts so far have been insufficient, that despite the evidence and many years of negotiation we are still not rising to the challenge," Ban told the UN-led talks of more than 190 nations on Tuesday. "Business as usual cannot be tolerated," he said. "Cancun must represent a breakth...

Chinese cities can be model for low carbon
Published: Dec. 7, 2010 at 2:54 PM Cancun, Mexico, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- The low carbon growth successes of some of China's largest and fastest-growing cities can serve as a model for other cities worldwide to reduce Greenhouse Gases, says a new report. The report by the Climate Group outlines how China's city governments have developed low carbon strategies, including rolling out industrial and domestic Energy Efficiency measures, investing in low carbon transport projects and promoting urban renewab...

Political Climate Cant Stop Climate Change Initiatives
       AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh is a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) attending the new round of United Nations Climate Change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. This is the second of a series of blogs on the talks. Read the first blog here. Congress’s failure to pass Climate Change Legislation and the election of a conservative majority in the next House have led many delegates from o