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Carmakers Ask Judge to Kill Suit    [

    Carmakers Fight Global Warming Lawsuit
    By Laura Kurtzman
    The Associated Press

    Saturday 16 December 2006

    Sacramento, California - 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.

    "The thrust of what we're saying is the technology to produce vehicles that emit far less greenhouse gases exists," Lockyer spokeswoman Teresa Schilling said. "They fight any attempt to get them to cut back on their pollution."

    The lawsuit contends the state is already dealing with the harmful effects of global warming caused by rising emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. Vehicles are the state's largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions.

    The complaint cites state reports that say rising temperatures will melt Sierra Nevada snowpack earlier each year, which will flood the Central Valley and threaten the state's water supply.

    Automakers are also wrangling with California over a 2002 law requiring them to cut emissions. Under the law, the California Air Resources Board has adopted standards designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from cars and light trucks by 25 percent and from sport utility vehicles by 18 percent starting in 2009.

    That law has since been copied by 10 other states.

    The auto industry is challenging those regulations, arguing that such reductions can only come from stricter fuel-economy standards, which are the province of the federal government. The state argues that emission reductions can be achieved in other ways.

    That case is expected to go to trial on January 30.

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    Carmakers Ask Judge to Kill Suit
    By Bob Egelko
    The San Francisco Chronicle

    Monday 18 December 2006

Lockyer alleges auto emissions key cause of changing climate.

    Major automakers have asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit Attorney General Bill Lockyer has filed against them over global warming, saying the case interferes with foreign policy and national regulation, and seeks to sanction them for selling a state-approved product.

    In papers filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, six manufacturers said the suit has no basis in state or federal law and could cause "incalculable damage (to) the nation's carefully regulated transportation industry and the national economy."

    Lockyer filed the suit in September against General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and the North American outlets of Toyota, Honda and Nissan. He alleged that emissions from their vehicles were a significant cause of climate change and were contributing to major losses in the state's economy and resources, ranging from a decline in the Sierra snowpack to increased air pollution and wildfire hazards.

    The suit seeks to label the emissions a public nuisance - that is, something that interferes with public health and safety - and to collect millions of dollars in compensation for the state. The dismissal by a federal judge in New York of a similar suit against energy companies by eight states, including California, is on appeal.

    Lockyer's office also represents California in a U.S. Supreme Court case challenging the Bush administration's refusal to regulate gases emitted by motor vehicles that most scientists agree contribute to global warming. In a fourth related case, automakers are trying to overturn a California law, the first of its kind in the nation, that would require them to limit emissions of those so-called greenhouse gases, starting with the 2009 models.

    The suit has been attacked by the business community from the outset. And, with Lockyer due to leave office in January and become state treasurer, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged candidates for attorney general to disavow the case.

    Jerry Brown, elected to succeed Lockyer, though a Democrat like Lockyer, has been noncommittal on whether he would proceed with the suit.

    The manufacturers argued in the papers filed Friday that regulation of the causes of global warming was a political question that the federal government and its agencies are constitutionally obligated to address, not the courts. They argued that the emission levels challenged in Lockyer's suit had been approved by federal agencies and were beyond the courts' power.

    The issue also involves sensitive matters of foreign policy, the automakers argued in their brief, citing President Bush's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol because of its mandatory curbs on emissions and his continuing discussions with other nations.

    "This is a policy determination of the highest order that is properly reserved for the political branches of the federal government," the companies said.

    Lockyer's office has disputed the automakers' argument that his suit interferes with national regulations.

    "There are no laws, there are no regulations, to follow,"' Teresa Schilling, a spokeswoman for Lockyer, said in a recent statement. "The federal government refused to adopt any laws regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and when we adopted rules in California, the companies took us to court."

    Moreover, the companies said, the state "has enthusiastically consented to the sale and use of the automobile," has a fleet of 37,000 vehicles, and maintains an extensive highway network that encourages the same activities attacked in the lawsuit.

    "The manufacturer of a motor vehicle is no more guilty of creating a nuisance than the builder of a highway, such as the state of California," attorney Theodore Boutrous wrote in the automakers' brief.