Global Warming News

Richmond, VA – This morning 17 Virginia lawmakers stood together to voice their concern over Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s recent challenge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding.  The EPA’s endangerment finding followed a US Supreme Court decision in 2007 (Massachusetts v. EPA) in which the court ordered EPA to determine if carbon dioxide is a threat to human health.

Members of both the House of Delegates and Virginia Senate commented on their distress that the Attorney General’s actions were a distraction for the commonwealth, and a waste of significant resources at such a tight fiscal environment.

"It costs money to litigate a lawsuit, and it’s estimated that it’s going to cost somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000 to carry a case such as this all the way to the United States Supreme Court,” said Senator Donald McEachin of Henrico. “Imagine what we could do with that money. That’s maybe 10 teachers or 10 policemen for a year; in short there are plenty of other good uses for that money, rather than going on, quite frankly, a frivolous jaunt through legal precedents to try and overturn something that’s well settled."

The legislators take issue with the cost of the lawsuit on what many of them describe as a bipartisan issue, referencing the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change which in December 2008 cited multiple concerns for Virginia including sea-level rise and threats to national security.

Referencing the commission on climate change State Senator Ralph Northam of Norfolk stated, “The science on climate change is clear – if we do nothing to reduce carbon emissions, we will disadvantage ourselves on a number of fronts.  As public servants, we have a responsibility to protect our constituents from harm imposed on them from elsewhere in society. While we are dealing with this unprecedented budget shortfall and are considering budget cuts that could disproportionably affect our most vulnerable citizens, I urge the Attorney General to reconsider launching this crusade against established science and instead work with us to take on real problems of environmental justice."

Responding to a question in the audience Delegate Albert Pollard of Lancaster Country concluded, “Quite simply, as we release carbon that was sequestered over hundreds of millions of years, we are returning the earth to its previous, earlier temperature.  For the Attorney General to argue anything else is simply him taking a knife to an intellectual gun fight and a waste of taxpayer money.”