After two significant legal defeats within the last six months, automakers celebrated a victory Monday when a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed a suit brought by the State of California against six car manufacturers.
Judge Martin J. Jenkins decided the court does not have the authority or expertise to enter the “global warming thicket” at this time, choosing instead to defer policy making to political branches of the government.
California sought billions of dollars in damages from General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co, Toyota Motor Corp, the US arm of Germany’s DaimlerChrysler AG and the North American units of Japan’s Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co Ltd. The suit claimed cars made by the six companies were responsible for 30 percent of the human-generated carbon dioxide emissions in the state and 20 percent of those nationwide.
According to the suit, California spends millions of dollars dealing with the environmental impact of these emissions, including reduced snow pack, beach erosion, ozone pollution and the impact on endangered animals and fish.
Jenkins wrote he was unwilling to impose damages on automakers, utility companies and other industries “for doing nothing more than lawfully engaging in their respective spheres of commerce within those states.”
In addition, he claimed there was no way to quantify the harm caused by emissions should the case be considered.
“The court is left without guidance in determining what is an unreasonable contribution to the sum of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere,” Judge Jenkins wrote, “or in determining who should bear the costs associated with global climate change that admittedly result from multiple sources around the globe.”
Ken Alex, California’s supervising deputy attorney general, said in an interview he understood why a federal district judge might be hesitant to enter the dispute. However, he claimed, “the basic tenet of law is that where you describe a harm then there needs to be a remedy for it.”
“Right now because the political branches — the federal government, Congress and the executive branch — have not acted, the state of California is left without a remedy.”
The California Attorney General’s office is considering whether to appeal the case to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The state is also considering suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), if it does not rule on a waiver request submitted in 2005 to enforce stringent emissions standards on automobiles.
Last week a federal court in Vermont upheld the legality of similar emissions standards meant to reduce greenhouse gases emitted by cars and light trucks, and in April the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act.
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