After all these decades, how can an oil company be breaking consumer protection laws by not telling people about the effects of burning fossil fuels – PB/TK
Exxon probe is unconstitutional, Republican prosecutors say – April 21 2017
A group of 11 Republican state attorneys general are protesting an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM.N) violated consumer protection laws when selling fossil fuel products, according to a court filing.
Top prosecutors for Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin, all of whom are Republicans, filed a brief in U.S. District Court in Manhattan supporting a lawsuit by Exxon to halt a probe by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.
Schneiderman and Healey, both Democrats, are looking at whether the company violated consumer protection laws by selling fossil fuels while failing to reveal information about the effects of burning them on the global climate.
In their brief, the attorneys general said Healey and Schneiderman were abusing their power and violating Exxon’s rights to free speech by “using law enforcement authority to resolve a public policy debate” over whether carbon emissions cause climate change, a debate they claim is not settled.
The brief cites a May 17, 2016, article in the conservative magazine the National Review by Scott Pruitt, who at the time was attorney general for Oklahoma and earlier this year was appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming “scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.”
Continue to reuters.com article: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-environment-lawsuit-idUSKBN17M2OY
