Tag "Judge"
Judge Throws Out Historic Climate Liability Cases Brought by Oakland and San Francisco
In a blow to the climate liability movement, Federal Judge William Alsup on Monday threw out a trendsetting lawsuit brought by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco against the five biggest fossil-fuel producing companies, The New York Times reported.
Alsup, of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, stemmed the tide of the movement with his decision, ruling that the courts were not the appropriate place to decide issues relating to climate change. “Would it really be fair to now ignore our own responsibility in the use of fossil fuels and place the blame for global warming on those who supplied what we demanded?
he asked in the statement. “This is obviously not the ruling we wanted, but this doesn’t mean the case is over,” San Francisco city attorney spokesperson John Coté told The New York Times. “We’re pleased that the court recognized that the science of global warming is no longer in dispute,” he said. “Reliable, affordable energy is not a public nuisance but a public necessity,” vice president and general counsel for Chevron R. Hewitt Pate told The New York Times.
The cities had filed their suits against the companies using public nuisance law.
Oakland and San Francisco had tried to file public nuisance suits at the state level, while the defendants tried to move the cases to federal courts.
Alsup decided the two cities’ suits should be tried federally, but the federal judge reviewing the climate liability cases brought by Marin County, San Mateo County and Imperial Beach moved them to state courts.
Judge Orders Historic Hearing on Climate Science
Phil Scott / Flickr If you turn on the news, you might think that climate science has been on trial for decades.
U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, who is hearing a suit brought by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco against five big oil corporations, ordered a historic tutorial in which both parties will have a chance to present their view of the science behind climate change, the McClatchy Washington Bureau reported March 7. “This will be the closest that we have seen to a trial on climate science in the United States, to date,” Michael Burger, head of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, told the Bureau.
The hearing marks the most recent novel development in an already groundbreaking lawsuit.
As EcoWatch reported, San Francisco became the first major U.S. city to sue the fossil fuel industry over climate change when it filed with Oakland against the five largest fossil-fuel producing corporations in September 2017.
They are therefore suing the companies for the costs of adapting to the climate challenge, such as the building of sea walls. “The court is forcing these companies to go on the record about their understanding of climate science, which they have desperately tried to avoid doing,” he told the Bureau.
The California cities’ suit isn’t the only historic climate case that will be decided in federal court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration could not halt a suit brought by 21 children and teenagers against the federal government for failing to act on climate change, The Washington Post reported. “We’re looking forward to putting the federal government on trial on climate science and its dangerous fossil fuel policies,” Julia Olson of Our Children’s Trust, the head lawyer in the children’s case, told the Post.
Campaigners urge appeal judges to overturn fracking decision
Campaigners urge appeal judges to overturn fracking decision.
Campaigning residents have urged leading judges to overturn a Government decision to approve a fracking site in Lancashire.
The scheme was given the go-ahead in October by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid.
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In written grounds of appeal, he asks the three judges to “set aside” the ruling of Mr Justice Dove in the High Court and to “quash the Secretary of State’s decision”.
PNRAG’s solicitors at law firm Leigh Day said the appeal is based on four grounds – that the Communities Secretary and the inspector made “errors of law” by “misinterpreting” a policy protecting against harm to the landscape, “wrongly applying” the National Planning Policy Framework, denying a fair hearing during the planning inquiry, and “using a wildly different test for assessing the impact on the quality of life of those living nearby”.
The judges will hear argument on behalf of both the Communities Secretary and Cuadrilla that the challenges by PRNAG and Mr Frackman should be dismissed.
A spokeswoman for the action group said: ” We trust that the Secretary of State’s decision to allow fracking at Preston New Road will be found unsound, and Lancashire County Council’s original decision will be reinstated. “Even before any fracking has commenced, the local community has been subjected to disruption. “They have suffered stress due to the process and, since work commenced on the site, their day-to-day lives have been disrupted by convoys of HGVs, a massive police presence and many road closures.”
A judge rules that rushing approval for the Dakota Access Pipeline violated the law.
A judge rules that rushing approval for the Dakota Access Pipeline violated the law.. Oil will keep flowing for now, but the Standing Rock Sioux will have an opportunity next week to argue the pipeline should be shut down while it undergoes further environmental review.
A decision on shutting down the pipeline could come in as soon as six weeks.
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg issued a ruling Wednesday that deemed the previous environmental review process inadequate.
The ruling comes in response to a legal challenge filed by the tribe in February, after the Trump administration hastily greenlit the pipeline shortly after inauguration.
According to Jan Hasselman, the Earthjustice attorney representing the tribe, the ruling represents a significant victory and is possibly the first time a federal judge ruled Army Corps approvals didn’t adequately consider environmental justice concerns.
Specifically, the judge said the Army Corps of Engineers, which must approve pipelines that cross water, “did not adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or the degree to which the pipeline’s effects are likely to be highly controversial.” Now, the Corps must undertake additional review.
But, based on the ruling, to what extent is unclear.
“Do they just try to paper this over with a supplemental or revised environmental assessment which is likely to lead to more litigation?” says Hasselman.
“Or do they go back to the EIS process which was started in the Obama administration?” The Standing Rock Sioux have argued for months that the pipeline would endanger their drinking water and ancestral lands.
Since oil began flowing in March, the pipeline has already leaked several times.
Judge Rejects $2.4 Million Fine For Oil Company Over Blast That Killed 7
Judge Rejects $2.4 Million Fine For Oil Company Over Blast That Killed 7.
Kevin Schafer via Getty Images A state appeals judge has rejected a $2.4 million dollar fine for an oil company after a refinery explosion killed seven workers.
State officials imposed the fine on Texas company Tesoro in October 2010, over a blast in Anacortes, Washington, that occurred April that year.
But late last week, Judge Mark Jaffe of the Washington State Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals overturned the fine, saying the state had not shown that the deadly explosion was Tesoro’s fault.
The company had been appealing the fine for years — though it did pay millions of dollars to the families of the victims.
The explosion occurred at the Tesoro’s Anacortes refinery when a heat exchanger ruptured.
(The outlet’s report was published before the final death toll.)
But Judge Jaffe wrote in his ruling on Thursday that the state was “unable to really articulate what Tesoro did or did not do to cause the explosion.” The Washington Department of Labor and Industries, however, is not the only group that has blamed the company for the disaster.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board said in 2011 that Tesoro inadequately maintained the heat exchanger that exploded, Reuters reported at the time.
Tesoro spokesman Matt Gill told GoSkagit.com that the company supported Judge Jaffe’s decision.
