Last week, former Attorney General William P. Barr wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal purporting to expose a nefarious effort to impose a carbon tax through tort litigation. His op-ed is part of a broad effort to convince the Supreme Court to grant certiorari in Suncor v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a tort suit filed against fossil fuel companies seeking compensation for the costs of adapting to climate change.
Today, the WSJ published my letter to the editor replying to Barr's op-ed, in which I noted there is nothing scandalous in what Barr reports, and that his underlying legal claims are without merit. As readers may recall, I have sparred with Barr on this subject before (see here and here).
In his op-ed, Barr reports that an attorney who has supported and assisted the filing of state-law-based tort claims by state and local governments against fossil fuel companies noted on a Federalist Society teleforum that, if these suits are successful, they would impose a de facto carbon tax. Barr treats this a scandalous confession. It is nothing of the kind. It is, rather, what everyone understands about the nature of tort suits.
