Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Environment roundup

  • Subpoena turnabout not fair play: Congressional Republicans investigating state AGs’ climate advocacy probe are lobbing subpoenas at private enviro groups that urged the anti-speech campaign. Knock it off, two wrongs don’t make right [Eli Lehrer and earlier] “You don’t need complicated models to figure out what happens when governments censor speech. The evidence on that question is solid.” [Steve Simpson]
  • And speaking of fraud in policy advocacy (whatever that may mean) some varieties of it are plainly going to have no legal consequences whatsoever [Matt Welch channeling Virginia Postrel on California political class and high-speed rail]
  • Michigan attorney general Bill Schuette says 40 anti-pipeline activists gathered and beat on the front door of his home for 30 minutes with his wife alone there [Detroit News]
  • Pro-nuclear demonstrators blockade Greenpeace office in San Francisco, but wouldn’t the ultimate way to protest an odious environmental group be to respect the property rights of all concerned? [SFist]
  • “It’s a shotgun approach”: injury lawyers find many defendants to blame after Flint public water fiasco [NPR via Renee Krake, Legal Ethics Forum]
  • “District court voids Obama administration fracking regulations” [Jonathan Adler, Alden Abbott]

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3 Comments

  • If the subpoenas and questioning of the left-wing groups are tightly controlled, then there shouldn’t be a problem. Congress has every right to investigate collusion between left-wing advocacy groups and state AGs. (Congress really should call the state AGs also.)

    It really only should be for testimony, and the GOP shouldn’t emulate these thuggish tactics.

    • By SPO

  • I don’t buy that first item. Climate dissent is not grounds for charging anyone with fraud. Trying to so charge them is grounds for serious charges itself, and must be punished severely if we’re not to see the law misused this way again and again by other prosecutors.

    • By jdgalt

  • When it comes to Greenpeace, I always thought that the French had the right idea, they just botched the execution a bit.