Enviros in court to halt third world economic development

BREITBART.COM - Just The News:

"'This is the first decision in the country to say that climate change causes sufficient injury to give a plaintiff standing, to open the courthouse door,' said Ronald Shems, a Vermont attorney representing Friends of the Earth.

"That group, in addition to Greenpeace and the cities of Boulder, Colo., Santa Monica, Oakland and Arcata, Calif., sued Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Those government agencies provide loans and insure billions of dollars of U.S. investors' money for development projects overseas. Many of the projects are power plants that emit greenhouses gases that the groups allege cause global warming."

Leaving aside the issue whether the US government has any business forcing taxpayers to subsidize US exports and private direct investment in foreign countries, this decision by US District Judge Jeffrey White raises a serious question whether the operating policies of federal agencies should be subject to the whim of first one jury and then another in an endless parade of lawsuits.

Remember, the issue is not whether the agencies are operating within their statutory authority, nor whether their operations are legal where they occur overseas. The plaintiffs merely allege that some measure of global warming will be caused by the operation of power plants or other facilities constructed in foreign countries with the help of these agencies and that it will harm them here in the US.

The answer to the first part of that complaint is certainly yes, there will be some incremental production of CO2 or other greenhouse gases. The problem, almost insuperable it seems to me, is to prove that the plaintiffs will suffer harm and to what degree. There are several dangers here that ought to concern all of us.

First, assuming all this were true, is this the sort of case that ought to be decided in court or through the legislature?

Second, can the government be trusted to put forth the best case available against global warming or will they trim their sales to suit the prevailing political winds?

Third, a case like this can turn on the inclinations of the presiding judge in terms of which experts to certify and how much expert testimony to allow to each side.

Fourth, will a jury of average folks be able to sort through all the atmospheric chemistry and global circulation models and the other paraphernalia of the global warming debate, or will the plaintiffs succeed in framing the issue in the minds of the jurors in terms of greedy capitalist exploiters and their enablers in government crushing the health of the little guys (them, i.e. the jurors) for private gain?

Connecting point four back to point one, the adversarial system in our courts works best when jurors are disinterested. This sort of case makes it very hard for jurors to consider the case in terms other than their own self interest.