Posted on 04/28/2016 12:28:45 PM PDT by CMB_polarization
The proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas plant’s environmental impacts are being singled out in a novel lawsuit in which youths are taking on the federal government because of the consequences they say their generation will have to live with as a result of climate change.
That lawsuit, which includes young plaintiffs from Colorado, is gaining widespread attention for having cleared an initial legal hurdle earlier this month. A federal magistrate judge rejected motions by the government and industry groups to dismiss the case.
According to the ruling by the Oregon judge, Thomas Coffin, the suit essentially alleges that the government is discounting carbon emissions so that past and present generations benefit from them while younger and future generations suffer from their impacts.
The suit in part calls for a court to set aside a Department of Energy decision allowing natural gas exports from Jordan Cove. The export project has sizable support in western Colorado because of its potential to serve as a portal to Asian markets for locally produced natural gas.
The project faces vocal opposition from some in Oregon, including people who say it would be the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the state. The project would require construction of a power plant to serve it.
The project recently was rejected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which cited a lack of customers to warrant the impacts of a 232-mile pipeline connecting to Jordan Cove. Coffin noted that decision in his ruling but also pointed to FERC’s willingness to reconsider the issue if market need can be addressed. The Jordan Cove developers have filed for a rehearing and now say there are contracts for the use of about three-quarters of the pipeline capacity.
In his ruling, Coffin characterizes the suit as “relatively unprecedented.” Among its other requests beyond the Jordan Cove one, it asks for a court order for the government to undertake a plan to phase out fossil fuels and draw down carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
Coffin said in his ruling, “It may be that eventually the alleged harms, assuming the correctness of plaintiffs’ analysis of the impacts of global climate change, will befall all of us. But the intractability of the debates before Congress and state legislatures and the alleged valuing of short-term economic interest despite the cost to human life, necessitates a need for the courts to evaluate the constitutional parameters of the action or inaction taken by the government. This is especially true when such harms have an alleged disparate impact on a discrete class of society.”
Coffin also referenced in his ruling a 2015 court order in the Netherlands requiring the government to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. He cited it in addressing the question of what difference any one country could make in reducing global emissions, suggesting that action by the United States when combined with other countries could sufficiently address the harms alleged in the suit.
The plaintiffs include 21 youths from ages 8 to 19, and prominent climate scientist James Hansen.
Coffin’s ruling not to dismiss the case will be reviewed by another judge.
The suit was brought with the involvement of the environmental groups Our Children’s Trust and Earth Guardians.
“This decision is one of the most significant in our nation’s history,” Philip Gregory, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a news release. “The court upheld our claims that the federal government intensified the danger to our plaintiffs’ lives, liberty and property. Judge Coffin decided our complaint will move forward and put climate science squarely in front of the federal courts.”
Coffin wrote in his ruling that in this state of the proceedings, he was obligated to accept the allegations of harm as being true.
“The question then becomes whether the alleged harm is traceable to the defendants’ conduct and whether the courts can redress such harm,” he wrote.
The American Petroleum Institute, National Association of Manufacturers and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers have intervened in the case. They and the government sought the suit’s dismissal based on arguments including an alleged lack of legal standing by the plaintiffs and the contention that the suit raises political issues rather than ones that can be acted on by a court.
Regarding standing, the suit alleges that the youths face not just broad-based harms from climate change such as sea level rise and drought, but personal ones such as the fact that the Jordan Cove pipeline would pass near the farm one of youth plaintiff, and the threats posed by things as wildfire and coastal flooding where other plaintiffs live.
Among the plaintiffs are Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh Martinez, of Boulder, an environmental activist and youth director of Earth Guardians, and Jaime Butler, a student at Colorado Rocky Mountain School, a private high school in Carbondale.
Michael Hinrichs, spokesman for the Jordan Cove project, said it monitors all lawsuits that may have an impact on the project.
As for the climate change issue, that “is something we are quite passionate about and believe our project fits well within addressing global warming,” he said.
“Jordan Cove has greenhouse gas emissions associated with it just like many other industries. However, unlike other industries, Jordan Cove is a delivery system that gets natural gas to markets like Japan so their country doesn’t need to burn more coal,” Hinrichs said.
Use of natural gas instead of coal should help Japan meet its carbon-emission-reduction goals under the recent international accord reached in Paris, he said.
“Looking beyond Japan, natural gas should play a leading role in reducing use of coal, especially in developing countries like India,” he said.
For such countries, “natural gas helps them avoid the terrible air quality we see in China, which is directly associated with how much coal they burn.”
Said Hinrichs, “If one is to argue for the global picture of climate change, then one needs to appropriately look at the global benefits of projects. Not doing so completely discounts the different ways in which to address climate change.’
I really wish I didn’t have to share the planet with these @$$hole$
Since we don't plan to work for a living.
Lawyers have done more damage to America then terrorists could ever dream of.
Human Shields for for "watermelons" and greedy lawyers.
I grew up in an era of no smog controls, deadly emissions, acid rain, threat of global thermo-nuclear war, global cooling, global warming, ozone layer depletion, Yoko Ono’s music, and smoking on airplanes. Explain to me, young skull full of mush, how you are more harmed now than I was then?
We also didn’t have disposable diapers, saran wrap, bottled water, canned air or aerosol anything. Everything we owned that outlived its original purpose was recycled into something useful for our home. The material things they think they need to eliminate are all things they created. Seems like maybe libs should think about this a bit in the future before they go charging down the hill.
Young skulls full of mush is a great description. They just need to go away until they are maybe 50.
Call me a crude old fart if you want, but $#!theads strikes me as more apt.
Either description works just fine. IMO they can have an opinion when they have a full-time job, pay taxes, live on their own and receive no benefits from the government.
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