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California Sues Automakers for Global Warming
ajs writes "Reuters is reporting that the state of California is suing automakers over global warming. California is claiming that automakers have 'harmed the resources, infrastructure and environmental health,' of the state. The targeted automakers are Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Chrysler Motors Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co."
Oh, for the love of...... *checks calendar..... nope, not April 1st)*
"(California) just passed a new law to cut global warming emissions by 25 percent and that's a good start and this lawsuit is a good next step," said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program.
Now, I am pretty much middle of the road politically (Disclaimer: I lean a bit left though), but this is insane. Insane as in insanely bad. Hey, Sierra Club! This statement may have just cost you 2007s contribution from me. The global warming legislation had good components, but if you start allying yourself with lawsuits like this, count me out.
Lockyer told Reuters he would seek "tens or hundreds of millions of dollars" from the automakers in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California.
Uh huh.... and what is your take going to be Lockyer? Oh, just a small percentage you say, but a small percentage of an obscenely large number of dollars is still lots of dollars, right? Will you be buying a new Bentley with your share? Or will it be a party in your Escalade?
While we are talking lawsuit, what's the logical argument/premise going to be for filing the suit? If we hold the automobile manufacturers responsible then what of the users of their products? Are you going to say that the drivers of such automobiles are "addicted", so by their logic are immune to prosecution? Why focus on the automakers? Why not grab every last dollar you can by going after the drivers and the cities and states that build the roads and freeways, because without them, the automakers would not have a market, right? As long as we are suing people because of global warming, why not airlines? Airline manufacturers? Smokers? Dry cleaners? The leather tanners that made your loafers? Hey, how about the computer industry? Or....... I *know*, lets sue all of the electrical generating companies and take us back to the dark ages.
Seriously though, I understand that there are lots of sources of global warming, but Lockyer, this is not the way to solve the problem by making the automotive companies the boogeymen. The real solution from an automotive perspective is to federally mandate gas milage standards that are more stringent than where they are now, provide incentives for more fuel efficient and lower polluting automobiles rather than the current system where there is an incentive for large SUVs, and work from the consumer side *without* filing suits to line your pocketses.
*RANT*Oh and while we are at it, Hey! G.W.B, instead of sucking money out of research, development and education, why don't you do what you said and invest in education and research? We are not going to solve these problems through a narrow focus on religious fundamentalism while we are excluding science education.
Jeez, sometimes I feel like I am getting squeezed on the far left by goofy loonies like Lockyer and pushed out of the picture by power hungry neocon fundies on the extreme right. What happened to the middle ground where people of reason and careful thought worked through compromise to help advance progress?*/RANT*
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Speaking as a a Californian of the (at least by today's standards) liberal persuasion... this suit is insane.
If you can't convince the federal government that there's a significant causal connection between vehicle emissions and global warming, you're not likely to be able to convince a judge.
Besides, the state just passed a law to enforce stricter emissions standards. Given the size of the market and the state's car culture, that alone will have far more effect than this lawsuit.
As for reasons, I think we need look no further than the fact that we have an election coming up in less than two months.
I'd refuse to see another vehicle to state agency.
Congratulations, jackass: you just gave the largest industrial manufacturers in the world every reason to spend billions to convince everyone that global warming doesn't exist. Think the anti-intellectual movement is bad now? Wait until GM's "Chicken Little" series of advertisements encourages SUV owners to run over anyone carrying a book.
Un-frickin'-believable. If you thought major corporations were bad before, see what happens when you give them an enormous financial incentive to be even worse.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This is a good initial first step, but I think that what they really need to do is go after the REAL culprits. Cut the middlemen of the car and energy companies and go right for the villains. I think that they should simply sue everyone with a car. Hell, just sue every single human that uses energy that might have come from a coal plant too. This way, not only are they going after the real villains, but the lawyers have that many more targets to go after... and in the end, isn't targets for lawyers, err the environment, what this is really all about?
This is stupid. We live in a free market democracy. If you don't like what the car makers are doing either A) don't buy from them or B) use the power of democracy to force them to change. There isn't even the semblance of an excuse for this sort of bullshit. We have two completely effective ways of dealing with the problem.
Nothing is more sad and pathetic then when lunatic fringe groups and lawyers team up. I am all for tougher regulation and applying a higher price to people dumping CO2 into the communal air, but this is NOT the way. This is just stupid.
Anyway, we the people power the government (through taxes) that enables these corporations to even exist. Why should the government (ostensibly though usually not literally the voice of the people) permit them to pollute, harming us all?
Germany is amusingly one of the few countries who have their act together on this, because their political process apparently actually works and allowed their Green party to gain power. Now, many industries there (and eventually, all of them) are being held responsible for their output, as should we all.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
...than PETA, it would seem. I lost respect for PETA long ago because of their shenanigans and now I think I'm feeling the same way about the Sierra Club.
And yet for some reason, the suit includes Toyota, which pioneered the marketing of hybrid cars in the US, and Honda, which produces hybrid versions of some of their more popular models.
trying to get money for the state and look `good,' get his name in the papers. After the NY+ Suit against the RIAA, this is the next step. It should be listened to for five minutes in case they have evidence that the auto makers are being intentionally negligent or are working to alter perception of scientific truth (which should be a crime in this case, not that Cali should get money for it,) and then it should be tossed out with a hefty fine to California for trying to tax the rest of the country. Which is what this is. That's right, California's DA is trying to tax everyone who owns a car the cost of one massive settlement + one settlement's lawyers. Given the state of the American auto industry, that's downright criminal.
The problem is not the car companies. The problem is the stupid american people who don't think beofre buying a big gas guzzler. If you don't get at least 30MPG, you are the problem. Why should we people who buy efficient vehicles have to pay extra (from thw lawsuits) for the purchasing habits of idiots?
Also, when will people wake up an realize you can't ever make a "corporation" pay for anything? The costs simply gets passed on to the consumer, which is you and me.
Parent is probably the best summary of the case here.
The Sovereign State of California set standards for what it determined to be healthy levels of pollution from automobiles. It then enforced those standards and required auto makers to meet the requirements, allowing them to do business in the state when they did. Now it is suing the auto makers because...?
In reality, it should be the People vs. the State for determining the incorrect levels of pollution that are deemed 'healthy.' There might actually be a case, there, too, now that the State of California, by way of this suit, is admitting that its own standards are/have been inadequate. All the citizen-folk have to do is search through public records for proof that the state knew this and refused to act on it.
Sometimes it's better to not put a fence around a pit because doing so only shows that you knew the danger and didn't do enough to fix it.
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
This will probably end up in a settlement, and in it, the car makers will pledge to do x,y,z in terms of emissions, etc.
Just like pretty much every case where a telecomm company was sued by the state for screwing consumers "we'll bring out dsl to smalltown, oregon by 2007" etc.
Nuisance, but sometimes the states "negotiate" this way.
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I actually hope this lawsuit succeeds (wait, hear me out). If it does, then the California government has just opened the door for its citizens to sue them for not providing sufficient public transportation and thereby contributing to greenhouse gasses. They have the means to cut down on the required use of personal vehicles, but have chosen not too make use of that means, therefore they are at fault for requiring people to drive as much as they do.
And before anyone blasts into me that it's too hard to get public transportation working in a major city, look at cities like Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, London, New York, Chicago (ok, Chicago needs help), Tokoyo, and pretty much every European city.
This is great, go for it guys!!! Woohoo. (idiots)
(yes, there is some sarcasm there)
Now, if that makes sense to anyone, could you please explain it to me? I think I've confused myself.
First, you have to prove that global warming actually exists. Which has not been done yet (Definitely not to the legal level of proof).
Actually, that part's pretty easy. The burden of legal proof is a little lower of a bar than the proof to ideologues and an uninformed public. That global temperatures over the past two centuries exhibit and upwards trend is pretty much proven. That atmospheric CO2 levels are tightly correlated to global temperature is pretty much proven. A mechanism to explain this is proven. That we have more C02 in the atmosphere than at any time in the past 800,000 years is pretty much proven.
Then you have to prove that the automakers are deliberatley causing Global Warming.
Ah, now THAT's where the lawsuit fails. You have to prove malice or negligence, and I think the burden of proof for THAT is where the bar is going to be set higher than they can reach, especially when the federal government does not consider CO2 to be a pollutant.
Ultimately, in the case of the auto industry, the problem is that the market does not want to pay higher prices for environmentally-friendly technologies, and there is no previous government mandate to only offer models that reduce emissions. Given that all they are doing is offering the option to be a bad citizen instead of forcing polluting vehicles on consumers, I don't see that liability can be proven.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Lockyer's termed-out this year and he's running for State Treasurer. This lawsuit is his way of getting his name in the media for free. Given the reaction I'm seeing here even from liberals, it might not have been the best idea he's ever had.
Being a resident of the State of California I'll say one thing as pertains to this lawsuit. If the politicians and their cronies in this state spent more time respecting the law and worrying about the constitutionality thereof, than they did trying to distract the masses with ludicrous political "shock & awe" such as the aforementioned lawsuit, we'd all be in much better shape. When I say we, I mean those who aren't already politicians.
This is stupid. We live in a free market democracy.
A free market democracy where you can contaminate my air and you don't pay me in return isn't a free market at all.
Air is not used as a product of a free market, so laws that apply to it must be different from laws that apply to other "products".
The day you put your car in a plastic bag (and the head, and the chemical plant, etc. ) and you pay for every cubic meter that you use I will agree with you, until then well come to a communist market: air.
My city: Barcelona.
What they're driving to get to court.
.... to see Honda and Toyota on that list. Those two, in particular, seem to be taking the initiative in flooding us with nice little fuel-efficent compacts. Good on them, I say.
l e.
Every third or fourth Toyota I see, it seems these days, is a Prius. I walk past two on the way to the bus stop every morning for work. Half of what's left are Scions of one flavor or an other; not exactly slouches mileage-wise themselves. And last I heard, they were putting the Prius' hybrid system into a Camrey and licensing it out to Nissan, and Subaru! Honda hasn't been quite so sucessful on the hybrid front as Toyota, but they're absolutely burying us in Civics... you can't walk half a block without tripping over a dozen of the things.
Sure, none of the above is quite as good as pure electrics or hydrogen, but they're a far cry from the ford executioner or the gm suburban-soccer-mom-from-the-depths-of-hades-mobi
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
I'm surprised by how strongly the Slashdot crowd is against this, and how nobody seems to understand the basic economics of it.
So here is a quick primer on external detrimentalities.
A for-profit business naturally attempts to maximize its revenues while minimizing costs. One method is to pass (some of) the costs off to someone else. The classic example is a factory pumping its waste into a nearby river, thereby transferring the disposal costs to other people, whose enjoyment of or utility from the river is diminished by its pollution.
This is known as an external detrimentality. It's good for the business, and probably even good for the business's customers, because it gets to sell its products cheaper. But that's only because it hasn't had to account for the true costs of manufacture. It's effectively getting subsidized. And subsidies skew natural market forces, resulting in inefficiency. For example, if there's a rival industry that properly paying for waste disposal, its products will be less competitive than they should be, and the industry will attract less investment.
The government's job--generally speaking, if it's interested in an efficient economiy--is to eliminate external detrimentalities and force businesses to account for their true costs of manufacture. It might do this by making it illegal to dump waste in rivers, or placing limits on acceptable pollution, or charging money for the use of radio bandwidth.
Today, if I buy a car and drive it around, I'm probably paying less than that behavior really costs, because I don't have to pay for most of the pollution I'm responsible for. That is, non-car owners in society are subsizing me, if only via their reduced enjoyment of smog-free days. Whether or not that's a moral issue, it's certainly an economic one, because we have made driving a car cheaper than it really is.
Certainly you can disagree with the specific method California is using here, but unless you believe other people should have to pay for your car, you shouldn't fault the general intent.
I should buy some cement.
What about Porsche AG, BMW AG, Daimler-Benz AG, Ferrari. Volkswagen Group, Maserati and others?
Anyone know what the California Attorney General drives?
The automakers are not complying with the disputed California laws because they are not valid. They are not valid because California lacks jurisdiction to make these laws since they involve interstate commerce. The different levels of government have different areas of responsibility. For goods that are traded globally it is not efficient for local governments to be involved in setting standards. This is one of the main advantages of international trade agreements, removing from local governments the setting of local standards and instead promoting global standards which results in better products at lower cost.
If California wants to reduce global warming they can raise the state gasoline tax, encourge people to walk to work by increasing housing density and with mixed-use development of housing and work, and providing better mass transit.
This reminds me of another major government cover-up lately.
Remember the recent tobacco settlements? Billions of dollars the government is seizing from the evil tobacco manufacturers in order to protect us? Does anyone think the government didn't know about what was going on all along? So they ignore their own medical experts, pass laws to support and tax tobacco companies and all of sudden when the public finally figures it out, the government jumps in to protect us. They were the chief business partner of the tobacco companies. And yet most Americans think the settlement was fair. The Government, who profited enormously from the tobacco companies and knew all along it was hurting us, suddenly becomes our defender and takes more money from the tobacco companies. It's hypocritical political slimery.
This California thing sounds just like it. The auto manufacturers all meet the laws on the books. They in good faith work to reduce pollution and succeed. And now all of a sudden the government sues them because what they have been doing all along isn't enough. Does anyone alive think that California government should NOT be listed as a defendant in this case? Seems they are guilty of the exact same actions as those they are accusing.
Ah what the heck does it matter? Americas Government system is at a point of meltdown. Corruption, extremist, intentional public lying - we can't be far from a revolution.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
Personally, I'd have phrased it like this:
"Arnold's first move was to fulfil a campaign pledge and repeal an unpopular tax increase that the legislature put in place to help cover up its irresponsible runaway spending habits."
"Separately, the California legislature once again passed a budget that failed to even attempt to cut spending in order to bring the budget deficit under control. At the same time voters continue their support of these habits by passing referendums that spend money like a drunk teen with his father's credit card."
"In a fit of total irresponsibility, voters also turned down a referendum that would have required their government to operate within a balanced budget."
"Just for fun, voters voted against an anti-gerrymandering law because they like things just the way they are."
I wish more actors would get into politics. Only the worst sort of person devotes their life to being a politician. Actors are able to glide into office on the basis of their popularity. In the past I'd have been annoyed by that, but I now realize that voters rarely vote people into office for good reasons. Paul Graham wrote an essay on how the most attractive candidates usually win. Therefore, it's better to get a wide selection of random people in office than it is to have a consistently bad selection of incumbents who have spent their lives as parasites on society.
Cow Cube
That's B.S. How did energy companies "rob" California? Oh, was it because California was reluctant to build powerplants for the last 20 years and was thus forced to by power on the spot market? You know what private companies do? They buy long term contracts for power. I know an aluminum plant that did this many years ago and it came a point where their contract for electricity was so cheap, they stopped producing aluminum and resold their power. That's economics. Someone else needed the electricity more then them.
You don't get efficient power distribution when you start regulating it with the government. And BTW, true deregulation never occured in California, until it does they will continue to have problems.
Gray Davis got sacked because he was incompentent, even for a democrat, and people are pretty dumb about voting for hollywood celebrities too.
I don't want to hear anything about education spending. Most people around where I live pay almost as much in property tax then I do in rent. Why? Oh, it's for the CHILDREN. As if people aren't smart enough to choose their own schools to put their kids in.
The lawsuit is about the fuel efficiency and emissions standards. California sued the federal government as well over these issues.
Essentially what California is trying to do is to get the auto makers to support these standards, to get them to oppose the federal government's efforts to prohibit the states from setting their own standards (basically making LA look like some non-class-M planet from Star Trek again).
So far, Toyota and Honda have been generally supportive of California's efforts (basically, they're sufficiently on top of things that they figure any technology rush to meet these standards will mean marketshare for them - Ford and GM would be about as fucked as you can possibly be). But the others are lobbying Congress to pass legislation to block California's existing laws and any new ones. The suit is designed to attach a cost to auto makers for doing this.
Think of it this way, a judge won't find for the state for the mere fact that cars pollute. A judge may find for the state if the automakers collectively conspire to undermine regulation that would reduce pollution.
Actors for politicians are generally a bad idea. Reagan was rather unique in that he actually did very little acting long before and he was quite well versed, having developed his views from scratch rather than having been feed with the predigested sort you see prevelent among the modern holy-wood left of today.
I shudder to think of 'Conan the Republican' and his kennedy clan wife. He seems to have great ambitions and shallow roots.
Just remember, when you trust gov. to solve problems, those in charge are there only because they are experts in getting elected and not for their ability to solve problems. And for most of them, the more problems solved, the less they are needed. In other words, a solved problem is a lost opportunity.
Brilliant.
I have a love-hate relationship with CA. Some of their regulations regarding emmissions, etc, help push the envelope forward, but then they forget to grandfather in any older vehicles. On the other hand, their desire to be so gigantically left brings about things like teaching Ebonics in schools (and I capitalize Ebonics with a bit of reservation).
But it's true - Cali, in its desire to be so progressive - wastes huge amounts of money on things not central to running a state, and then runs into huge state deficits just trying to run basic services.
So suing car manufacturers is a double-edged sword. If it's a combatant of the industry suing the state, then fine. If it's trying to extort money, it's stupid. You can't have standard A, which manufacturers meet, then later decide to enact standard B where B > A, and sue the manufacturers for meeting standard A for the years it was the standard.
I'm all for better fuel efficiency. Enacting stricter regulations? Good. Suing for meeting older regulations during the reign of those regulations? Ridiculous.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
And from the article in question:
I don't have a "side" in this, as I think Enron is unfairly blamed for much that was a result of both state and federal corruption. However, I certainly don't agree with the notion that they weren't in significant control of the situation. The state's lack of action put them in a spot to be manipulated and Enron saw to it that they were manipulated to the fullest extent possible.
The only way the people of california should back this..
is if 100% of the award.. goes to creating a mass transit system.
No lawyers fee's, No campaign contributions, Just fund a construction project
to move people fast, efficient and CLEAN.