Air Quality

State of California Sues Carmakers on Climate Change

By Aaron Naparstek

3:35 PM EDT on September 20, 2006

If you think Eliot Spitzer picked some tough fights as Attorney General, check out this guy Lockyer in California:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California filed a global warming lawsuit on Wednesday against Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and three other automakers, charging that greenhouse gases from their vehicles have cost the state millions of dollars.
State Attorney General Bill Lockyer said the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California was the first of its kind to seek to hold manufacturers liable for the damages caused by their vehicles’ emissions.
The lawsuit also names Chrysler Motors Corp., the U.S. arm of Germany’s DaimlerChrysler, and the North American units of Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd..
It also charges that vehicle emissions have contributed significantly to global warming and harmed the resources, infrastructure and environmental health of the most populous state in the United States.
Lockyer, a Democrat, said the complaint states that under federal and state common law the automakers have created a public nuisance by producing “millions of vehicles that collectively emit massive quantities of carbon dioxide.”

Aaron Naparstek

Aaron Naparstek is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparstek's journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. He was also one of the original cast members of the "War on Cars" podcast. You can find more of his work on his website.

Air Quality | Cars | Climate Change | Elliot Spitzer | Public Health

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