Republican attorneys general say they will aggressively fight a suite of lawsuits against fossil fuel companies over climate change damages.
The top law officials from three red states — South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arkansas — yesterday said they worry about cities and counties using the suits, which allege that oil companies’ greenhouse gas emissions have created a public nuisance, to set national energy policy.
“The courts are no place to determine national environmental policy, and public nuisance is not a theory that judges should employ in these kinds of cases,” said Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter (R), who became the state’s top lawyer when former Attorney General Scott Pruitt became administrator of EPA, at a roundtable for reporters hosted by the National Association of Manufacturers.