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US-USA-CLIMATE-LAWSUIT
Abe hosts an official dinner for Trump at Akasaka Palace in
Japan
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hosts an official dinner for
U.S. President Donald Trump at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Japan
November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
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The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania, says the United States is "relying on junk
science" and ignoring "clear and present dangers of climate
change, knowingly increasing its resulting damages, death and
destruction."
It was the latest legal action that green advocates have taken
to combat Trump administration efforts to roll back
environmental regulations through rule changes at agencies like
the U.S. Department of Interior and the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.
The two young plaintiffs, aged 7 and 11, are identified only by
their first and last initials in the court papers, which allege
that both are suffering from the effects of a rapidly warming
climate.
Trump has called climate change a hoax and said in June he would
withdraw the United States from a global pact to combat it -
calling the deal's demands for emissions cuts too costly for the
U.S. economy.
The lawsuit asks the court to prevent the EPA, Trump and the
U.S. Department of Energy, along with Energy Secretary Rick
Perry and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, from rolling back any
rules that "increase the frequency and/or intensity of
life-threatening effects of climate change."
EPA and Energy Department representatives declined to comment. A
White House spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request
for comment.
Pruitt said on Oct. 10 he wanted to scrap the Clean Power Plan,
put in place under former Democratic President Barack Obama.
On Sept. 29, Perry asked federal regulators to provide price
incentives to help keep coal and nuclear power plants open, as a
way to address "risks" to the resilience of the electrical grid.
By including the children, the Clean Air Council seemed to model
its case after Juliana v. U.S., a pending federal case in which
a group of teenagers sued the U.S. government for violating
their constitutional rights by causing climate change.
"The Clean Air Council case is taking the legal theories
pioneered in Juliana and applying them to a narrow set of facts
related to specific rollbacks of the Trump administration," said
Meg Ward, a spokeswoman for Our Children's Trust, a group
leading the Juliana suit.
(Reporting by Emily Flitter in New York; Editing by Peter
Cooney)
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