California v. General Motors: State moves to voluntarily dismiss climate change lawsuit against major automakers
On Friday, June 19, the California Attorney General’s Office voluntarily dropped its appeal to the Ninth Circuit in California v. General Motors Corp. to review the lower court’s dismissal of the state’s public nuisance lawsuit against six major automobile companies. The lawsuit was originally filed in the Northern District of California in 2006 by then-Attorney General Lockyer, alleging that the automakers’ cars were a substantial source of greenhouse gas emissions, which caused climate change, resulting in millions of dollars in damages to the state, including increased air pollution, a decline in the snowpack, and coastal erosion.
The automakers – General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and the North American outlets of Toyota, Honda and Nissan – filed early motions to dismiss, which the District Court granted in September 2007 on the grounds that the issues raised were “political questions” which were reserved for the President and Congress, and not issues that the Court could, or should, resolve at that time.
Judge Martin Jenkins wrote in his ruling granting the carmakers’ motions to dismiss: “The Court finds that injecting itself into the global warming thicket at this juncture would require an initial policy determination of the type reserved for the political branches of government." The Court also noted that the cars were sold legally, there was no allegation that the cars’ emissions violated any current laws or regulations, and that climate change had many contributing factors.
In November 2007, when Jerry Brown became the state’s Attorney General, his office appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit. That appeal was withdrawn on June 19 along with a statement that recent policy changes by the Obama Administration indicated progress on certain related issues, specifically an increase in fuel economy standards and the US Environmental Protection Agency’s “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases constitute a public health hazard pursuant to the Clean Air Act.
California v. General Motors Corp. was one of three major climate change lawsuits that have been stalled on appeal since at least 2007. The others, Connecticut v. American Electric Power Company and Comer v. Murphy Oil, remain pending in the Second and Fifth Circuits, respectively.
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