New environmental cops: state attorneys general

State attorneys general are known best for throwing mobsters in jail and trying to protect consumers from things like false advertising and Medicare fraud. But now an increasing number are taking an activist role well outside their state boundaries - challenging federal agencies, treading novel legal waters, and suing everyone from pharmaceutical companies to mutual funds.

In their latest foray, they're taking on global warming and polluters in states other than their own. Wednesday, eight attorneys general from California to Connecticut, along with officials from New York City, filed suit against five giant utilities they contend are the nation's largest emitters of carbon dioxide, a key contributor to global warming. None of the companies are located in the states that are suing.

The AGs charge that the utility companies are creating a "public nuisance" with their greenhouses gasses. But they're not asking for any financial damages, just for a court to require the companies to reduce their emissions.

Such national environmental regulation usually falls within the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but the AGs contend that it has failed, along with Congress and the Bush administration, to deal effectively with the threats from global warming. "This lawsuit opens a new legal frontier in the fight against global warming, a challenge that poses a serious threat...," says California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

To supporters, the AG's aggressive move across state boundaries and into the federal regulatory territory is yet another inventive effort by state authorities to fill an important policy void left by Washington. "This reflects a broad concern among the American people about global warming," says David Sandalow, an environmental scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "Polling data shows they believe it's a serious problem. They don't know what to do about it, and they're looking for elected leaders to do something."

But critics are just as adamant that this suit is farfetched - and simply grandstanding. They believe the AG's effort to extend their authority upsets the balance of powers between the federal and state governments. "It's easier to gloat about being an environmental steward if the costs are being paid by someone in a different state," says Michael Greve, an environmental expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "It's precisely because environmental laws always have these distributive effects [on different states,] that there's a place these kinds of decisions are traditionally made - it's called the US Congress."

This is not the first time the AGs have taken on the feds. Indeed it's part of a trend that began two decades ago with the advent of federal deregulation. It gathered momentum in 1998 when a group of attorneys general sued the tobacco industry to force changes in the advertising and marketing of cigarettes.

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