CEI Global Warming Lawsuit Draws Ire of Northeast State Attorneys General

Contact for Interviews:     <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />

Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252

Christopher C. Horner, 202.262.4458

 

CEI Global Warming Lawsuit Draws Ire of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Northeast State Attorneys General

AGs Accuse White House, Public Interest Group of “Sweetheart Suit”

 

Washington, D.C., August 11, 2003—In an attempt to discredit the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s lawsuit against the White House over the Administration’s failure to implement a sound-science law in regard to global warming reports, the state attorneys general of Maine and Connecticut have asked U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate an alleged “sweetheart suit” relationship between the Bush administration’s Council on Environmental Quality and CEI. 

 

“This is a panicked attempt by global warming activists to cover over a scandal – the fact that millions of taxpayer dollars are being diverted to address climate change concerns based on unsound data,” says Christopher C. Horner, an attorney and senior fellow at CEI. 

 

CEI bases its challenge on the Federal Data Quality Act (FDQA).  The FDQA requires that data disseminated by the government meet basic scientific standards for “objectivity” and “utility.”  CEI contends that the National Assessment on Climate Change (2000) fails this test.  The FDQA prohibits taxpayer funding of dissemination of such junk science, and last week CEI filed suit.

 

The state attorneys general of Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts filed their own lawsuit in June against the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming the agency is required under the federal Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.  “CEI was highly critical of the AGs lawsuit seeking to tighten regulatory restrictions on energy, since carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and the case for draconian global warming policies remains unproven.  Our opposition to the earlier AG action, we suspect, motivated this attack,” says Fred Smith, president of CEI. 

 

 

Click here to hear Fred Smith’s response to the AGs.

 

 

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CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.