Left-wing advocacy nonprofits, aided by trial law firms and Democrats, are increasingly turning to the legal system to push Green New Deal policies, according to a new consumer report shared with Fox News Digital.
The report, published Thursday by the Alliance for Consumers, details how advocacy groups have looked to wage public nuisance lawsuits to remove products and services, such as fossil fuels and firearms, from the market that “do not align with the progressive agenda.” [emphasis, links added]
Public nuisance laws prohibit activities that harm people or property nearby and are generally enforced by government entities.
“Public nuisance cases aren’t about putting money in the hands of victims,” Alliance for Consumers Executive Director O.H. Skinner told Fox News Digital in an interview.
“Public nuisance cases are about creating a big pot of money to ‘abate the nuisance.’ And that money doesn’t go to victims or consumers or any of the traditional people who you would think would be the good guys in a lawsuit against a giant company.”
“There’s been far too little attention to that. So, we’ve really been spending a lot of time highlighting that these are really ideological weapons because public nuisance is a unique tool to generate billions of dollars for pet causes and bankrupt, or risk bankrupting, somebody you don’t like,” Skinner continued.
“If you want to end firearm manufacturing in America, if you want to cripple fossil fuels or energy companies, this is a very unique tool.”
According to the report, public nuisance cases are generally pursued using a similar “playbook” where left-wing interest groups identify an issue impacting people, identify corporations within that industry, and then file a claim for “indirect harm.”
They then leverage political and public pressure to force a settlement in the case, the Alliance for Consumers concluded.
In addition to fossil fuels and firearms, the nuisance cases have targeted chemicals, plastics, vaping, and automakers.
Overall, Skinner said, public nuisance cases focused particularly on climate change are designed to “stitch together” a large pool of money to replace the Green New Deal.
That legislation, which proposed trillions of dollars in spending to force an economy-wide transition to green energy, was first introduced years ago by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., but it has yet to receive a floor vote.
The Alliance for Consumers report further highlights several federal lawmakers and governors who have sought to boost public nuisance cases and in some cases, filed or involved themselves in such cases.
The group points to Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Ed Markey, D-Mass., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Govs., Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., and Phil Murphy, D-N.J., in particular.
“A long line of progressive United States Senators have used their offices to urge additional use of public nuisance lawsuits or to provide formal legal support to existing public nuisance lawsuits,” the report states.
“Understanding more about these United States Senators who are boosting public nuisance litigation — from their core policy priorities to the role they are playing in these public nuisance lawsuits — goes a long way in helping illustrate the goals of the modern public nuisance movement,” it adds.
For example, Whitehouse has long supported public nuisance litigation dating back to his time as attorney general of Rhode Island when in 1999, he filed such a case against manufacturers accused of mixing lead into their products.
But he has since supported broader cases against the fossil fuel industry, filing briefs in cases filed in his home state and California.
The other lawmakers listed in the report have similarly filed briefs in such cases or offered public support for such efforts.
“They are stepping in time and time again to use their official office to weigh in,” Skinner said. “Sheldon Whitehouse, who rails about dark money, has come out and is publicly filing briefs and issuing statements supporting his home state attorney general, who is using Sher Edling, a dark money-fueled progressive climate change law firm to accomplish progressive goals.”
“That just kind of reveals that this is a no-holds-barred attack because he talks about dark money all the time, but then, when that progressive dark money is financing the lawsuits, even in his home state, [Whitehouse] is right there filing legal briefs, and saying how this must prevail,” he continued.
Over the last several years, the California-based trial law firm Sher Edling has filed numerous climate-related public nuisance lawsuits nationwide.
The firm — which argues in the novel cases that oil companies are financially responsible for global warming and therefore weather events that impact people, property, and communities — has filed cases on behalf of Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Minnesota, New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Baltimore, Honolulu and many local governments across the country.
Sher Edling, founded in 2016 [to spearhead] such litigation, states on its website that its climate practice seeks to hold oil companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell accountable for their alleged “deception” about climate change.
The firm has raised millions of dollars from liberal dark money nonprofits to fund its pursuits.
While the entirety of Sher Edling’s funding structure is unknown, the firm has for years taken donations from a pass-through fund managed by the left-wing New Venture Fund, whose individual donors are obscured from public view, meaning donors can remain anonymous.
Read rest at Fox News
The fact that no gun owners have used these public nuisance protesters for target practice proves that guns are not a problem. ANTIFA, BLM, thieves etc should be grateful for the restraint shown by the public.
Mexico has some of the most stringent anti-gun laws in the world. There’s just one gun store in the entire country, and that one is run by the government. It was about 25 years ago the Mexican government was trying to apprehend a gun runner, who brought guns into the country in his own Boeing 727 aircraft.
If there’s money to be made, the demand will be met.
We call them Watermelons Green on Outside Red Inside
What this web site refers to as Lawfare has also been known a Judicial Legislation. This is the attempt to enact measures by a ruling of a judge rather than the normal legislative or initiative process. It is a direct by pass of democracy for measures that can not and should not make it by the normal means. It quite literally amounts to a dictatorship. The people behind Judicial Legislation are quite literally devoid of morality. Common among such suits is they hold companies responsible for selling their legal products rather than the end user. To demonstrate just how outrageous this concept is, logically it is the same as holding breweries responsible for the consequences of drunk driving rather than the person who drinks and gets behind the wheel. If climate change where not a fraud, the people responsible would be those using the products of the fossil fuel companies.
Many have commented about guns. The tactics used by the liberals are the same as climate change. With climate change, the impact of certain weather events is taken out of context of what is normal historically making it appear worse. With firearms, there is a lot of emphasis on certain events. This ignores the how relevant it is in comparison of other items. Drug over doses, medial errors, and alcohol use all kill more people. Traffic accidents are usually ahead of firearms.
The climate change movement does the best it can to ignore the benefits of elevated carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. The gun control movement does this in a big way. They only count when a criminal is killed as being used for self defense. The reality is the vast majority of defense cases a shot isn’t even fired. I have had one such indent myself. One thing we can be sure of, the liberal elites will continue to use any method that they can to force their agendas on the rest of us.
Climate Change has become a radical and dangerous new age religion in America which demands their Sacrifice of Virgins and Children just like all the Pegan fake religions have