The Trump administration’s decision to walk away from the world’s bedrock climate treaty and roll back a key federal climate finding may undercut its legal arguments against states’ efforts to tackle climate change, New York Attorney General Letitia James told a federal court.
The Department of Justice last spring sued New York and Vermont in an effort to invalidate state laws creating “climate Superfunds” that seek payment from energy producers for greenhouse gas emissions. But in a letter filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, attorneys with James’ office say that the federal government’s case against New York has more than one “inconsistency.”
The letter asks to file a supplemental brief to address the federal government’s withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as EPA’s decision to repeal the 2009 determination that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
James’ office notes that the U.S. has argued in court that New York’s climate Superfund law “seeks to regulate global greenhouse gas emissions despite the United States having made foreign policy decisions to address that issue of global concern through a purpose-built international agreement — the Framework Convention.”
