https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-climate-change-tort-racket-1528499384
Liberals want to use racketeering laws to prosecute so-called climate-change skeptics. But the real conspiracy may be between plaintiff lawyers and Democratic politicians who have ganged up to shake down oil companies.
San Francisco, Oakland, New York and Seattle have sued five global oil giants—BP, Chevron , ConocoPhillips , ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell —for billions in future damages from climate change. Brass-knuckled plaintiff firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro has been shopping around the lawsuit to other cities desperate for cash.
No court has recognized common-law claims for injuries supposedly caused by climate change, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in AEP v. Connecticut (2011) that the Clean Air Act pre-empts public nuisance torts against corporations for greenhouse-gas emissions. So the cities are now arguing that the mere production and promotion of fossil fuels create a public nuisance, and the suits are heading to court.
San Francisco and Oakland were counting on a home courtroom advantage with their choice of legal venue give that climate change is something of a religion in California. But Clinton-appointed federal Judge William Alsup is calling fouls as he sees them.
