President Obama apparently intends for the proposed EPA endangerment finding on CO2 to spur tort claims against emitters.
According to Carbon Control News (Aug. 4):
Industry attorneys are calling on EPA to include language in its final greenhouse gas (GHG) endangerment finding banning GHG tort claims filed in response to the finding, fearing the document may cause a flood of new common law damages claims that the attorneys say could impose significant transaction costs even if eventually dismissed.
But the industry call may face hurdles as the Obama administration has already signaled in federal rules and other policy documents its reluctance to preempt such litigation.
Perhaps the upside is that the rest of us will be able to sue Al Gore for breathing.
Today’s America reminds me of the movie “Thirteenth Warrior”. The good guy leader kills the wicked witch/shaman of the bad guys (read: USSR). However, in the fight she rakes him with a poison tipped finger nail (Soros & Co.) and he winds up dying at the end of the final battle.
I fear the USSR has killed us. We have a Pyrrhic victory my friends.
Bring it on. Any chance for a fair airing of the dirty laundry of this issue will be a loser for these punks.
If there is no tax, then let them tort!
I keep saying – this is the appropriate response to the CO2 endangerment finding. Sue! Sue everyone! Keep suing! Sue until every penny of the economy is drained, every job ended, every CO2 source that isn’t alive (and for the Cattle industry, many that are) is shut down!
Those of us in opposition to this nonsense are going to have to make it extremely painful, if not deadly in some cases, before the sheeple who have swallowed this wake up and realize that electricity ain’t so bad, transportation is a good thing, and WARMER IS BETTER!
Don’t expect the EPA or any legislative body to do anything that will make life more difficult for tort lawyers. That would be like clear-cutting a watershed upstream from the reservoir from which the regulators, lawyers, and lawmakers all drink.
Of course Obama wants this. He is a Harvard Elitist, and like Clinton is in the pocket of tort lawyers. Whatever cannot be accomplished through heavy legislation and activist judges, will be done through absurd lawsuits, that, guess what, MAKES RICH LAWYERS RICHER. So much for Change.
This is why in the entire healthcare discussion tort reform has never been discussed. They villify insurance companies daily, but never touch on why insurance rates are so high. The answer of course is uncapped punitive damage claims. Insurance is based on actuary tables. Those tables based on the highest dollar potential liability. Cap punitive settlements in the 7 figure range instead of the 9 figure range we see some of these class action suits paying out, and insurance rates will fall sharply. Writing this into a one page bill would do far more good for Americans than the 1300 page healthcare abortion being tossed around currently. Of course this is only what you would do if you ACTUALLY wanted to fix healthcare. If you want to impose socialism on the masses while keeping your college buddies firmly seated in the burgeois elite, then you prose ridiculous “solutions” like these…