First Nations student death inquest continues Wednesday with children’s advocate testimony
The seven students whose deaths are the subject of the inquest are, from top left, Jethro Anderson, Curran Strang, Paul Panacheese, Robyn Harper, Reggie Bushie, Kyle Morriseau, and Jordan Wabasse. (CBC)
About 65 per cent of the young people who died in northwestern Ontario in recent years are Indigenous — a statistic revealed Tuesday at the inquest into the deaths of seven First Nations students in Thunder Bay.
One of the lawyers for the Nishnawbe Aski Nation asked Ontario’s Chief Coroner about the number of Indigenous deaths in a region where First Nations people make up far less than half of the population.
“Whatever way we slice these numbers, the rate of deaths that come under your jurisdiction are grossly disproportionate to the percentage of First Nations people in the population,” Julian Roy said.
The inquest continues Wednesday, with testimony from children’s advocate Cindy Blackstock.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) granted leave to appeal in three cases that concern important aspects of the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate Aboriginal peoples. A summary of each decision under appeal is provided below. Follow our ERA blog for further updates as we track these cases at the SCC.
1. Role of Tribunals in Consultation – Chippewas of the Thames First Nation v. Enbridge Pipelines Inc.
On March 10, 2016, the SCC granted leave to appeal in Chippewas of the Thames First Nation v. Enbridge Pipelines Inc., 2015 FCA 222, a decision of the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) released on October 20, 2015. The SCC may use this opportunity to build on its decision in Rio Tinto Alcan v. Carrier SekaniTribal Council, 2010 SCC 43 to address the role of regulatory tribunals vis-à-vis the Crown’s duty to consult, including in circumstances where the Crown is not a party to the regulatory proceedings, and the tribunal (in this case, the National Energy Board (NEB)) is the final decision-maker.
In the decision under appeal, the FCA upheld the NEB’s approval of Enbridge Pipelines Inc.’s application for a pipeline reversal and capacity expansion project in Ontario. The First Nation argued that the NEB ought not to have granted the approvals until the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate was fulfilled. The FCA considered: (i) whether the NEB was required to determine if the Crown was under a duty to consult and if that duty had been discharged (the DTC Determinations); and (ii) whether the NEB itself had a duty to consult.
On the first issue, following the FCA’s 2009 decision in Standing Buffalo Dakota First Nation v. Enbridge Pipelines Inc., 2009 FCA 308, the majority of the FCA held that in the absence of the Crown’s participation in Enbridge’s application, the NEB was not required to make the DTC Determinations prior to rendering a decision. On the second issue, the FCA found that there had been no delegation of the Crown’s duty to consult by the Crown to the NEB, under the NEB Act or otherwise, and the NEB was not obliged to discharge the duty to consult for the Crown.
In dissent, Justice Rennie argued that Rio Tinto overruled Standing Buffalo. In Rio Tinto, the SCC held that the power of a tribunal to decide questions of law implies a power to decide constitutional issues that are properly before it. Therefore, he felt that the NEB was required to make the DTC Determinations, whether or not the Crown was a participant in the hearing. Further, Justice Rennie felt that the NEB must have the power to assess whether the duty to consult has been fulfilled, and to refuse to grant an approval if it has not. Otherwise, in cases where the NEB is the final decision-maker, projects could be approved without the Crown ever consulting with Aboriginal groups whose rights may be adversely affected.
2. Role of Tribunals in Consultation – Hamlet of Clyde River v. TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company ASA (TGS)
This appeal relates to a decision of the NEB to issue a Geophysical Operations Authorization to three proponents allowing an offshore seismic survey program in Baffin Island and the Davis Strait for up to five years. The appellants challenged the decision arguing, among other things, that the Crown had not met the duty to consult with the Inuit residing in Clyde River. The Crown did not undertake any consultation outside of the NEB process and the appellants argued that the public participation process through the NEB was not a substitute for formal consultation and that the proponents’ consultation efforts were inadequate, among other things.
The Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the application for judicial review on August 17, 2015 holding that the NEB has a mandate to engage in a consultation process such that the Crown could rely on this process to meet its duty to consult, at least in part. However, the FCA held that “when the Crown relies on the Board’s process, in every case it will be necessary for the Crown to assess if additional consultation activities or accommodation is required in order to satisfy the honour of the Crown.” In this case, the Court concluded that there was no additional consultation required by the Crown beyond what took place through the NEB’s environmental assessment process and by the proponents.
Like Chippewas of the Thames, this case will require the SCC to determine the role of a regulatory tribunal vis-à-vis the Crown. While this case does not directly deal with whether the NEB itself has an independent duty to consult, the SCC will be asked to consider the extent to which the Crown can rely on its regulatory processes and the circumstances under which the Crown may be required to engage in separate additional consultation with potentially affected Aboriginal groups in order to satisfy the honour of the Crown. The SCC already determined in Taku River that the Crown can rely on regulatory processes to fulfill the duty to consult and thus this appeal will likely focus on the permissible degree of that reliance rather than the question of reliance in general.
3. Adequacy of Consultation and Accommodation, and Freedom of Religion – Ktunaxa Nation v. British Columbia (Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations)
On March 17, 2016, the SCC granted leave to appeal in Ktunaxa Nation v. British Columbia (Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations), 2015 BCCA 352, a decision of the BC Court of Appeal (BCCA) released on August 6, 2015. The case will provide the SCC with an opportunity to address the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate in the context of potential impacts on an Aboriginal group’s spiritual and religious beliefs, as well as the application of freedom of religion protected under the Charter.
The BCCA dismissed the appeal of the Ktunaxa Nation Council concerning the Province’s decision to approve a Master Development Agreement (MDA) for a proposed ski resort in the Jumbo Valley in southeastern BC. Ktunaxa sought to quash the MDA approval, claiming that it violated two of their constitutional rights: the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate Aboriginal peoples under s. 25 of the Constitution Act,1982, and their freedom of religion to exercise a spiritual practice under s. 2(a) of theCharter.
Ktunaxa claimed that the proposed resort would be located in Qat’muk, a sacred area of spiritual significance and the home of the Grizzly Bear Spirit. The Ktunaxa claimed that the resort and overnight human habitation would desecrate the site and cause the Grizzly Bear spirit to leave, which would profoundly impact their culture and identity. Plans for the resort began in 1991 and an environmental assessment certificate was issued in 2004. However, Ktunaxa first raised the position that no accommodation was possible in 2009, based primarily on the beliefs of one Ktunaxa elder which were not widely held among the Ktunaxa. Nevertheless, approval of the MDA was delayed from 2009 until 2012, while the Minister consulted with the Ktunaxa to attempt to accommodate and reach agreement with them.
In respect of the alleged Charter breach, the BCCA held that s.2(a) did not protect the religious belief asserted by the Ktunaxa in this case, finding that s.2(a) does not apply to protect the vitality of religious communities where such vitality is predicated on the assertion that others must act or refrain from acting and behave in a manner consistent with a belief that they do not share. The BCCA also dismissed Ktunaxa’s position that the MDA violated the Crown’s duty to consult and accommodate, finding that the Crown engaged in good faith, deep consultation with the Ktunaxa and that the process of consultation and accommodation met the standard of reasonableness.
These three cases will provide important opportunities for the SCC to further clarify the requirements and limits of duty to consult for all parties involved.
Morocco is investing about $2.6 billion on the construction of the Ouarzazate complex, which forms the heart of a $9 billion strategy to harness one of the country’s greatest natural resources — sunshine.
When completed in 2017, it will cover an area nine times the size of New York’s Central Park and generate enough electricity to power about one million households.
The first phase was officially opened last month, and a further three linked plants will come online by the end of next year, according to the president of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy, Mustapha Bakkoury.
“It’s very impressive,” Bakkoury told CNNMoney. “You cannot see the end of the [solar] mirrors.”
Morocco has been developing solar and other sources of renewable power for years. It has just set itself the ambitious target of meeting just over half the nation’s electricity needs from renewable power by 2030.
It’s trying to wean itself off imported fuel, and reduce emissions at the same time, said Bakkoury.
Morocco is using solar technology that operates very differently from traditional solar panels, which use photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight directly into electricity.
The Ouarzazate complex uses large curved “mirrors” that track the sun like flowers and channel radiation to generate steam inside a network of tubes. The steam drives a central turbine that generates electricity, which flows into the national grid for use by Moroccan homes and businesses.
Perhaps most impressive is that the complex can continue to operate after the sun sets. Heat from the system can be stored for hours in tanks filled with molten salts. That allows steam to be generated for hours and keep turning the turbine at night.
The operational portion of the Ouarzazate solar complex provides 2% of the country’s daily power, and the country has a long way to go to hit its targets. But analysts say Morocco has a good track record when it comes to executing on its plans.
“I think Morocco should be commended for delivering on its ambition,” said Ben Warren, a global power and utilities expert at EY, formerly Ernst & Young. “Other countries have been, to date, noticeable for talking about ambitious renewable plans, but not implementing them.”
He said Morocco is joining the ranks of solar superpowers alongside the U.S., Chile and South Africa.
Power usage in the country is growing at a rapid rate and infrastructure has to keep pace. Bakkoury expects national power consumption will double in 10 years.
The ability to store power for hours at a time is crucial for a country such as Morocco because usage peaks after the sun goes down, he added.
Winnipeg Free Press columnist Gordon Sinclair’s depiction of Wab Kinew is offensive with damaging implications that reach beyond the election. Sinclair uses his privileged position as a columnist to portray Kinew as a violent man who can’t be trusted; a person with ulterior motives and someone to be feared.
It’s shocking that Sinclair, a powerful and intimidating man himself, describes feeling physically threatened by Kinew stating that he offered to shake Kinew’s hand at a recent press conference because “walking up and offering my hand to him first was a good idea, because you know what they say. A man can’t hit you when you’re shaking his hand.”
Having attended that event, we were taken aback by Sinclair’s representation of events, especially in the context of a city and province struggling to deal with deep-rooted racism.
While there is no excuse for the misogynistic, homophobic words Kinew communicated in past years, there is a broader conversation that needs to take place and longer term implications to be considered.
Long before entering politics, Wab Kinew took full responsibility for his past and now speaks out against misogyny, homophobia, racism and other acts of hate and abuses of power. He has been sober for six years, has advocated for an inquiry for missing and murdered women and girls, has led and participated in many initiatives focused on education about residential schools and reconciliation.
He has become an important role model for Indigenous youth, teaching them to be strong, proud and to persevere in spite of challenges. For those that have taken a self-destructive path such as he once did, he demonstrates that life can get better. That change is possible.
Kinew openly shares his personal journey in his book The Reason You Walk. He describes his personal experiences with racism and the challenges growing up as the son of a residential school survivor. His story does not excuse past actions but it does shed light on the damaging effects of colonialism and racism.
These damaging effects are also described throughout the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Report, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future. Thousands of residential school survivors and their families shared painful stories describing the intergenerational impact that residential schools and racism has had on their families. Telling these stories cannot have been an easy thing to do. Many did so for their own healing, but also in hope that non-Indigenous people would understand the serious and long-term damage done and move beyond apology to action.
The TRC has brought us to an important crossroads. How we respond to the case of Wab Kinew is a reflection on what we understand our role to be in the process of reconciliation.
Gordon Sinclair’s depiction of Wab Kinew is harmful because it moves in the opposite direction of reconciliation, inciting suspicion and distrust.
We can only hope that there are many others more reflective than Sinclair — not condoning Kinew’s past behavior, but choosing to accept his apology and judge him on the work he has done in recent years.
We do not let Wab Kinew off the hook for what he has said and done in the past and we don’t suggest that all residential school survivors are prone to making misogynist or homophobic comments; such views transcend race, class, culture and experience. However, we do suggest that reconciliation requires us to consider the context of colonialism that results in many Indigenous people experiencing deeply rooted feelings of shame, self-hatred and anger — anger that is sometimes projected toward others.
The TRC report asserts, “reconciliation begins with each and every one of us.” The fact that Kinew has taken responsibility for his misdirected anger suggests that he is on a path to reconciliation. We have a responsibility to support him and others on that journey.
This is important because as the TRC reminds us, the legacy of residential schools continues. Racism is prevalent; the basic needs of many Indigenous people continue to be unmet and youth are dying by suicide at alarming rates. Wab Kinew and other young Indigenous leaders like him represent hope to many by persevering against personal obstacles and advocating for Indigenous rights and policy reforms.
By continuing on as the NDP candidate in Fort Rouge, in spite of the strangely obsessive attacks on his character, Wab Kinew sends an important message to Indigenous youth. That they mustn’t give up. By failing to recognize Kinew as the person he has become, by not giving him an opportunity to lead, we send a different and damaging message to Indigenous youth — if we won’t forgive Wab Kinew, then what hope do they have?
The oppressive colonial dynamic has affected all Canadian whether from places of dominance and privilege or as victims. As an Honorary Witness for the TRC, and as a recipient of traditional Indigenous knowledge in my family, I (Tina) have learned that we must all take a stand against our dark history, and that we have the opportunity to create equity and justice for all citizens, unbinding future generations of Indigenous youth from colonialism.
Those of us who are not Indigenous must consider this: if we expect Indigenous people to forgive us for our past mistakes, should we not forgive Kinew for his?
Tina Keeper is a film and TV producer, TRC Honorary Witness and Associate Producer of the RWB production, Going Home Star.Shauna MacKinnon is Assistant Professor at the University of Winnipeg Department of Urban and Inner City Studies.
The Nadleh Whuten and Stellaten First Nations, located east of Prince George along the Nechako River, have proclaimed a water management regime for their territories. - Citizen file photo by James Doyle
Leaders of the Nadleh Whut’en and Stellat’en First Nations say a regime for the regulation of the surface waters throughout the whole of their territories has been enacted and are calling on the provincial government to collaborate with them on the initiative.
Proponents will now have to win their consent for projects that could affect any rivers, lakes, streams and creeks, according to a press release issued Wednesday afternoon.
And for approved projects, economic accommodation through such avenues as revenue sharing agreements, impact management and benefits agreements and project equity arrangements will also be required.
In an interview, Nadleh Whut’en elected chief Martin Louie said the move was made partly in answer to troubles they’ve been having with the Endako mine.
“A lot of the mines have one outlet into the water or two at the most, but this one has seven or eight of them coming out of there and they go into different streams,” Louie said. “We tried to stop it and they’re using grandfather laws to protect themselves and do anything they want.”
The standards set out in the regime for water quality are higher than the provincial standards, according to the statement.
The Nadleh Whut’en and Stellat’en territories are east of Prince George with their main reserves near Fort Fraser and Fraser Lake.
“I’m not here to attract the activists, I’m here to attract the real environmental people,” Louie said. “That’s the difference.”
In an e-mailed response, the Ministry of Environment said it has not yet received the declaration, and so is not in a position to comment on it specifically. “However the province and First Nations share an interest in protecting water now and into the future.”
Sea levels could rise nearly twice as much as previously predicted by the end of this century if carbon dioxide emissions continue unabated, an outcome that could devastate coastal communities around the globe, according to new research published Wednesday.
The main reason? Antarctica.
Scientists behind a new study published in the journal Nature used sophisticated computer models to decipher a longstanding riddle about how the massive, mostly uninhabited continent surrendered so much ice during previous warm periods on Earth. They found thatsimilar conditions in the future could lead to monumental and irreversible increases in sea levels. If high levels of greenhouse gas emissions continue, they concluded, oceans could rise by close to two meters in total (more than six feet) by the end of the century. The melting of ice on Antarctica alone could cause seas to rise more than 15 meters (49 feet) by 2500.
The startling findings paint a far grimmer picture than current consensus predictions, which have suggested that seas could rise by just under a meter at most by the year 2100. Those estimates relied on the notion that expanding ocean waters and the melting of relatively small glacierswould fuel the majority of sea level rise, rather than the massive ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.
The projection “nearly doubles” prior estimates of sea level rise, which had relied on a “minimal contribution from Antarctica,” said Rob DeConto of University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who authored the study with David Pollard of Penn State University.
The research already has created a buzz in the community of scientists studying Antarctica, and experts largely praised the new model as thorough and impressive, while noting its remaining uncertainties.
“People should not look at this as a futuristic scenario of things that may or may not happen. They should look at it as the tragic story we are following right now,” said Eric Rignot, an expert on Antarctica’s ice sheet and an earth sciences professor at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in Wednesday’s study. “We are not there yet … [But] with the current rate of emissions, we are heading that way.”
If carbon emissions continue unabated, expanding oceans and massive ice melt would threaten global coastal communities, according to new projections. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)
Should the new research prove correct, it could trigger a “tectonic shift” in expectations for the speed and severity of the sea level problem, said Ben Strauss, director of the program on sea level rise at Climate Central, an independent organization of scientists based in New Jersey. He said that while the study’s findings represent potentially grave problems for many coastal areas in the decades ahead, the century beginning in 2100 could see truly catastrophic shifts, unless societies make sharp cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
“Under the high emissions scenario, the 22nd century would be the century of hell,” Strauss said. “There would really be an unthinkable level of sea rise. It would erase many major cities and some nations from the map … That century would become the century of exodus from the coast.”
Places as far flung as South Florida, Bangladesh, Shanghai, Hampton Roads in Virginia and parts of Washington, D.C., could be engulfed by rising waters, Strauss said. Even by 2100, Miami Beach and the Florida Keys could begin to vanish. New Orleans essentially could become an island guarded by levies. Floods that pushed as far inland as the surge from Hurricane Sandy could ravage parts of the East Coast with far greater frequency.
The researchers behind Wednesday’s study make clear that their model has limitations and that human behavior can alter the possible outcomes. For instance, the worst-case scenario — of seas rising nearly 4 feet due to Antarctic ice loss alone by 2100 — assumes that very high emissions continue for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
An edge of the Thwaites ice shelf: The blue, visible areas are denser ice. Over time, the weight of polar glaciers and ice sheets compresses and squeezes out gases and air. (Jim Yungel/NASA)
In Paris late last year, world leaders forged an historic agreement to begin scaling back such emissions in coming years. They embraced the goal of holding global warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but at the same time, it has been widely noted that current country-level commitments to cut emissions fall far short of this target.
But even under a more moderate emissions scenario, Wednesday’s study found that the Antarctic contribution to sea level rise still could reach about two feet by 2100, and much more by 2500. Only if countries sharply reduce emissions does the model show that it’s possible to preserve Antarctica in roughly its current state.
“This research highlights the importance of doing even much better than the Paris agreement if we’re going to save our coastal cities,” Strauss said.
DeConto and Pollard arrived at their projections about future sea level rise by first turning to the past. Their study is based on an improved understanding of two past warm eras in Earth’s history that featured much higher seas, known as the Pliocene and the Eemian. The Pliocene was a warm period about 3 million years ago, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are believed to have been about what they are now — 400 parts per million. Sea levels are believed to have been significantly higher than now — perhaps 30 feet or more. The Eemian period, between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, also featured sea levels 6 to 9 meters above current levels, with global temperatures not much warmer than our current era.
[Why some Antarctic glaciers are disappearing faster then we thought]
Sea level rise on the scale seen in those eras likely required a loss of ice not just from Greenland, but also from Antarctica. But previous computer models of Antarctica have failed to accurately reproduce such scenarios. Scientists had spent “years of struggling to be able to simulate tens of meters of sea level rise in the Pliocene,” DeConto said. “This has been a longstanding problem for us. And we had known for years that we’re probably missing some important underlying physics.”
Scientists already knew that key parts of Antarctica, and especially West Antarctica, feature a condition called “marine ice sheet instability.” That is, vast glaciers are already rooted below sea level and lie on downward sloping seabeds. Warm water can not only melt them from below, but as the glaciers retreat, more and more ice will be exposed to melting.
The new study factors innot only this process, but two new ice processesthat have scientists already haveseen destabilize several glaciers in Greenland: “hydrofracture,” in which water formed by the melting of snow and ice atop a glacier’s stabilizing ice shelf causes it to break up; and “cliff collapse,” in which a sheer ice cliff 100 meters or more above sea level becomes unstable and crashes repeatedly into the ocean below. Both phenomena canspeed up the pace of ice loss from glaciers and cause sea level rise.
“Build a little sand castle and it is fine; too high and it may break,”said Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State University who has published previously with DeConto and Pollard, describing the revelations regarding ice cliff collapse.
Knut Christianson, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, said the new work will spur additional research to determine precisely what happens at glaciers where cliff collapses and so-called “calving” occur. “It’s a more comprehensive analysis than before, and it certainly indicates that we should look more closely to see whether or not the way they treat these processes in the model is accurate in the real world,” he said.
The research further undermines a string of sea level projections from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which have been faulted for being too conservative.
In 2013, the body projected that for the same high-end emissions scenario used in the current study, sea level rise by the year 2100 would be between 0.52 and 0.98 meters (1.7 and 3.22 feet), relatively little of which would come from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. It noted that beyond this likely range, only Antarctica’s marine-based regions could conceivably contribute a lot more, but the panel found that “there is medium confidence that this additional contribution would not exceed several tenths of a meter.”
The new study challenges that reasoning. It also emerges as mounting research has pointed at one region of Antarctica in particular — the Amundsen Sea sector of remote West Antarctica, centered on the enormous,marine-based Thwaites glacier— as particularly vulnerable.
If the projections in Wednesday’s study prove correct, they could present especially bad news for U.S. coasts. The reason is gravity: Antarctica’s enormous mass pulls the ocean toward it, and when it loses significant mass, seas would surge back toward the opposite end of the world.
“Sea level rise is not going to be felt evenly over the surface of the Earth. It’s really bad for New York, Boston. We are sort of in the bullseye,” DeConto said.
Coalition of top state law enforcement officials vows to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their conduct on climate change.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and a coalition of attorneys general, supported by former Vice President Al Gore, vowed on March 29, 2016, to hold fossil fuel companies accountable if their words and deeds on climate change had crossed into illegality. Credit: David Sassoon/InsideClimate News
BY DAVID HASEMYER AND SABRINA SHANKMAN, reposted from InsideClimateNews, Mar 30, 2016
A new coalition of state attorneys general gave vocal notice to fossil fuel companies on Tuesday that obfuscating the realities of climate change has put ExxonMobil and its peers under the searchlight of a broadening multistate investigation.
Announcing an alliance of top state law enforcement officers to press for urgent climate action on multiple legal fronts, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was joined by six of his counterparts, their ranks bolstered by aides from 10 additional states and the District of Columbia. The group met in New York to plan strategies and share information.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey
One after another, the top legal officials from Vermont, Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut and the Virgin Islands vowed to hold fossil fuel companies accountable if their words and deeds on climate change had crossed into illegality.
“The First Amendment, ladies and gentlemen, does not give you the right to commit fraud,” said Schneiderman, who in Novemberissued a subpoena to ExxonMobil under the state’s far-reaching securities and consumer protection statutes.
“Every attorney general does work on fraud cases, and we are pursuing this as we would any other fraud matter. You have to tell the truth, you can’t make misrepresentations of the kinds we’ve seen here,” he said on Tuesday. “The scope of the problem we are facing, the size of the corporate entities and their alliances, the trade associations and other groups, is massive and it requires a multistate effort.”
Attorney General Claude Walker of the Virgin Islands/Credit: ICN
Attorney General Maura Healey of Massachusetts explicitly disclosed that she, too, has opened an investigation into ExxonMobil’s actions and statements involving climate change. Attorney General Claude Walker of the Virgin Islands said he had launched a fossil fuel investigation as well. Schneiderman later suggested that it involved Exxon, and also said that California has undertaken a probe of Exxon, although that state’s attorney general, Kamala Harris, was represented by staff.
All of those attorneys general are Democrats, and as the group stood at a podium bearing the words “AGs United for Clean Power” they made clear that their agenda also extended to supporting the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate policies, the Clean Power Plan. The group wrote a brief defending those regulations, which have been put on hold by the Supreme Court pending litigation at a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.
“Everyone from President Obama on down is under a relentless assault from well-funded, highly aggressive and morally vacant forces that are trying to block every step by the federal government to take meaningful action,” Schneiderman said. “So today we are sending a message that at least some of us, actually a lot of us, in state government are prepared to step into this battle with an unprecedented level of commitment and coordination.”
“If there are companies—whether utilities or fossil fuel companies—committing fraud in an effort to maximize their short-term profit at the expense of the people we represent,” he continued, “we want to find out about it and want to expose it and we want to pursue them to the fullest extent of the law, prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.”
“The investigations targeting our company threaten to have a chilling effect on private sector research,” Exxon’s vice president of public and government affairs, Suzanne McCarron, said in a lengthy statement on its website. The company also responded on Twitter, saying the allegations of climate deceit are “preposterous” and “politically motivated and baseless,” and that it is assessing its legal options.
