Columbus, OH – In a new policy report, Climate Change as Public Nuisance: A Backdoor Scheme to Dictate America’s Energy Policy, The Buckeye Institute exposes how public nuisance legal theory is being used to attack energy companies and set U.S. energy policy through the courts.

“The rash of public nuisance climate lawsuits spreading across the nation is a dangerous attempt to use the courts to force communities to adopt net-zero carbon-emissions policies,” said Rea S. Hederman Jr., executive director of the Economic Research Center and vice president of policy at The Buckeye Institute, and co-author of the report. “This effort to impose an ESG agenda through the courts, after failing to do so through Congress, would financially cripple energy companies and threaten the U.S. economy.”

Already, more than 30 lawsuits have been filed against energy companies across the country seeking huge monetary awards and court-imposed abatements to force the adoption of net-zero carbon-emissions policies and an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) agenda. By asking courts to order abatements—the traditional remedy in nuisance litigation—climate activists would “turn judges into regulators and effectively impose a net-zero rule on carbon emissions.” These efforts would “financially cripple energy companies, inflict significant economic harm, and turn the limited public nuisance theory into a boundless tort action available for economic engineering.”

The report’s authors warn that “Courts should be wary of plaintiffs extending public nuisance theory far beyond its traditional scope,” and urge policymakers to act if the courts adopt plaintiffs’ arguments, cautioning, “the U.S. economy might depend on it.”

Rea S. Hederman Jr, executive director of the Economic Research Center and vice president of policy; David C. Tryon, director of litigation; Sai C. Martha, economic research analyst; and Aswin Prabhakar, economic research analyst, co-authored Climate Change as Public Nuisance: A Backdoor Scheme to Dictate America’s Energy Policy.

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