legislation

American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut

Issues

Whether a party can assert a federal common claim challenging a company’s carbon dioxide emissions as a public nuisance, or whether such efforts to curb emissions should be brought solely through the legislative process.

 

Several states brought suit against various power companies, arguing that the companies’ carbon emissions create a public nuisance – i.e. harm the public welfare – by contributing to global warming and damaging the environment. The district court dismissed the claim before trial, holding that disputes concerning global warming are “political questions” that should be resolved by the legislature, not the courts. However, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that courts are allowed to hear such cases, and that such disputes are not restricted to resolution in the political arena. Furthermore, the Second Circuit held that allowing such cases does not alleviate a plaintiff’s heavy burden of proving its side of the dispute in court. The decision will depend on whether the Supreme Court feels that the judiciary can properly handle such claims, or whether the complexity, controversy, and volume of such cases counsel in favor of dismissing this initial suit.

Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

1. Whether States and private parties have standing to seek judicially-fashioned emissions caps on five utilities for their alleged contribution to harms claimed to arise from global climate change caused by more than a century of emissions by billions of independent sources.

2. Whether a cause of action to cap carbon dioxide emissions can be implied under federal common law where no statute creates such a cause of action, and the Clean Air Act speaks directly to the same subject matter and assigns federal responsibility for regulating such emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency.

3. Whether claims seeking to cap defendants' carbon dioxide emissions at "reasonable" levels, based on a court's weighing of the potential risks of climate change against the socioeconomic utility of defendants' conduct, would be governed by "judicially discoverable and manageable standards" or could be resolved without "initial policy determination[s] of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion." Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217 (1962).

In July 2004, the States of Connecticut, New York, California, Iowa, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, and the City of New York (collectively “Connecticut”) filed a complaint against American Electric Power Company, Southern Company, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Xcel Energy, and Cinergy (c

Written by

Edited by

Additional Resources

Submit for publication
0

nondelegation doctrine

State of Georgia, et al. v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc.

Issues

Does the government edicts doctrine render uncopyrightable works of government officials that do not carry the force of law?

The Supreme Court will determine whether the government edicts doctrine renders uncopyrightable the annotations in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (“OCGA.”) The government edicts doctrine prevents individuals from copyrighting government edicts—such as judicial decisions and statutes. The State of Georgia and the Georgia Code Revision Committee (“Georgia”) argue that the annotations—which were primarily written by private actors and do not carry the force of law—are beyond the scope of the government edicts doctrine. PublicResource.Org disagrees, arguing that because (1) the annotations are published under a state authority, and (2) Georgia’s Supreme Court treats the OCGA annotations as authentic sources of legal meaning, the annotations carry the force of law and are thus uncopyrightable under the government edicts doctrine. The Court’s decision will have implications for organizations’ abilities to provide low-cost or free public access to state laws and non-legal codes and standards (e.g. construction codes and standards).

Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties

Whether the government edicts doctrine extends to—and thus renders uncopyrightable—works that lack the force of law, such as the annotations in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated.

The Official Code of Georgia Annotated (“OCGA”) is Georgia’s official compilation of all its laws and has been published yearly since 1982. State of Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org at 5. Both private and public entities wrote the OCGA. Id. at 2–3. The OCGA contains both statutory text and annotations of the text, which help to explain the law. Id. at 3.

Written by

Edited by

Submit for publication
0
Subscribe to legislation