Authors

Thomas J. Alves

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

Abstract

Many legal hurdles confront plaintiffs who assert common law public nuisance claims against energy companies in an effort to curtail their production of greenhouse gases (GHG’s). These include standing, political question, the dormant commerce clause, and federal preemption. This paper explores federal preemption of common law public nuisance claims by the Clean Air Act (CAA) and concludes that such common law claims remain viable. The Supreme Court’s ruling in International Paper Co. v. Ouellette, 479 U.S. 481 (1987) (Ouellette), combined with the textual, structural, and schematic similarities between the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the CAA, form the basis for a convincing argument that the CAA does not preempt source-state common law public nuisance claims against source-state emitters of GHG’s.

Comments

2013 ABA Energy Law Writing Competition award-winning paper

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.