The High Cost of Law Enforcement

New Report Exposes Global Warming ‘Law Enforcement for Rent’

Deep-pocketed global warming activists have been pouring big bucks into attorneys general’s offices to pay for lawyers to advance their agenda and use the powers of the law to take actions they never could achieve alone, according to a new report.

Released Wednesday by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the 56-page document dubbed “Law Enforcement for Rent” paints a damning view of the cozy relationship between environmental activists and Democratic attorneys general in several states that have pulled off an end run around the democratic process — grabbing resources they have not been able to get from lawmakers.

“This is political. We have a policymaking process. They tried it and failed,” said Christopher Horner, a fellow at the think tank who wrote the report. “So their stance is, ‘It’s not working, so we’re going to use law enforcement.’”

Horner said the tactic has given environmental activists a new avenue to increase restrictions on carbon emissions after Congress rebuffed them, the Supreme Court blocked a regulatory plan then-President Barack Obama offered, and other supportive politicians lost races at the state and national levels.
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The report traces the campaign to a 2012 conference in La Jolla, California, organized by a coalition of groups supported by The Rockefeller Foundation. That conference produced a document that described how to make global warming the new tobacco:

“State attorneys general can also subpoena documents, raising the possibility that a single sympathetic state attorney general might have substantial success in bringing key internal documents.”

Several attorneys general signed on.

Read the whole thing. Not Unrelated:  Judge tosses NYC lawsuit blaming oil companies for climate change

A federal judge on Thursday threw out New York City’s lawsuit against five of the world’s largest oil companies, dealing another setback to liberal jurisdictions seeking to hold the petroleum industry financially responsible for global warming.

U.S. District Court Judge John Keenan in New York dismissed the complaint against ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and ConocoPhillips seeking billions to shore up infrastructure from rising sea tides and other calamities attributed by city officials to climate change.

The judge ruled that the courtroom was not the appropriate venue for the claim.

“Climate change is a fact of life, as is not contested by defendants,” Judge Keenanwrote in a 23-page opinion. “But the serious problems caused thereby are not for the judiciary to ameliorate. Global warming and solutions thereto must be addressed by the two other branches of government.”

His comments echoed those of U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, who threw out last month similar public-nuisance claims filed by San Francisco and Oakland, concluding that the issue was best addressed by the executive and legislative branches as well as the diplomatic community.

“Those dangers are worldwide. Their causes are worldwide. The benefits of fossil fuels are worldwide,” Judge Alsup said in his ruling. “The problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case.”

And it's not only climate:  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo halted an investigation into the Manhattan DA’s handling of the Harvey Weinstein case just as the law firm representing the Hollywood producer gave Cuomo’s campaign $25,000. H/T Instapundit.

The best law enforcement money can buy.