Advocates Take Shots at VW Emissions Accord

Law.com reports on CEI’s Center for Class Action Fairness’s critique of the Volkswagen emissions settlement which CEI’s William Yeatman also discusses. 

In one filing, 10 groups led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank that includes prominent class-action critic Ted Frank, criticized the zero-emissions technology investments as having no “nexus” to the Clean Water Act violations at issue in the case. They specifically targeted $1.2 billion of the investments that are set to go to states other than California.

They also said the settlement raised concerns about the separation of powers.

“President Obama in 2011 made a promise to put 1 million electric vehicles on the road,” said William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Institute. But Congress failed to pass legislation twice, he said. “We now have executive lawmaking through consent decree, which raises questions regarding limits to apparent or attempted presidential authority.”

Read the full article at Law.com.