Carmakers fight global warming lawsuit

[citizen snips]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The six largest automakers asked a federal judge to toss out a lawsuit by California that accuses them of harming human health and the environment by producing vehicles that contribute to global warming.

The American and Japanese auto companies filed a motion Friday in U.S. District Court in Oakland to dismiss the state's suit, and an attorney for the carmakers said Saturday that state officials who want to reduce auto emissions should do it through regulation not litigation.

"It's the classic kind of case that the Supreme Court has said doesn't belong in federal court," said Theodore Boutrous, who represents Chrysler Motors Corp., General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor North America Inc., American Honda Motor Co. and Nissan North America Inc.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who filed the suit in September, claims that automakers are violating public nuisance laws by producing high-emission vehicles and should pay damages for polluting. He says automakers could produce cleaner vehicles, but have chosen to fight instead.

more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061217/ap_on_re_us/global_warming_lawsuit

[wtmusic]

1. Ha! the auto industry promoting regulation

attempting to avoid a Phillip Morris-style quagmire.

CA has its own damn self to blame for dropping the ball in 2003.

[NNadir]

2. California environmental laws always substitute some day in the future

for doing something now.

They didn't even seriously try to enforce the 1990 ZEV law, but it made politicians popular in 1990. As soon as the point came for its mandates to actually be in effect, the law was discarded.

Now of course, California under Arnie has decreed some nonsense about what they are going to do about climate change in 2020. I predict that the actual meeting of those goals - all about Arnie's campaign in 2006 and nothing else - will simply be discarded, like the 1990 promise that by 2005 California would have 10% "Zero Emission Vehicles."