INDIANA – Leading a 17-state coalition, Attorney General Todd Rokita is defending Hoosiers against an attempt by Delaware to use its own state courts to impose climate change policy on Indiana and the rest of the nation.
Citing common-law public nuisance claims, Delaware is seeking to sue numerous fossil-fuel companies on the premise that the companies’ activities have contributed to global climate change.
“It is unreasonable that a single state would try to dictate its leftist ideologies for the rest of the country and Hoosiers won’t stand for it,” Attorney General Rokita said. “We should have our common sense say on nationally consequential endeavors such as striking a productive, achievable, and effective balance between economic stability and environmental protection. Using public-nuisance laws to punish fossil-fuel companies is not the correct approach and smacks of leftists who want to curtail the liberty of people by driving up costs of fuel while reducing their choices for various types of fuel.”
Attorney General Rokita also has led multistate coalitions against similar efforts by several U.S. cities to use their own state courts to exclude other states from the climate-change policymaking process. Those cities include Hoboken, in New Jersey, and the cities of San Francisco and Oakland in California.
“Hoosiers and all Americans are best served when we continue to follow the cooperative federalism model that our country has long used to address environmental problems,” Attorney General Rokita said. “No state has the rightful authority to commandeer the process.”
Indiana’s amicus brief is attached.
