State AGs and Separation of Powers

As described on legalnewsline.com, the Washington Legal Foundation contains an opinion piece by John Suthers (Colorado Attorney General) and Geoff Blue (Colorado Deputy Attorney General for Legal Policy).  The piece is titled, "State Attorneys General Must Be Mindful of Separation of Powers."

The paper by Suthers and Blue cautions against the often politically motivated efforts by state attorneys general to dictate public policy through, for example, litigation asserting public nuisance claims.  With regard to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's public nuisance suit against major auto manaufacturers based on car emissions, Suthers and Blue say Lockyer

"wanted California to recover damages for all the purported environmental harm caused by automobiles since their invention. It was his contention that vehicles are a 'public nuisance' the manufacturers have inflicted upon us. Not only is public nuisance a novel theory for a suit of this nature, but the case ignored the fact that the California legislature has imposed upon the auto manufacturers auto emission standards that are much stricter than the rest of the nation, and the companies have complied by specially manufacturing a significant portion of their fleets for sale in California. The suit also didn’t acknowledge that it wasn’t the auto manufacturers that built all the freeways on which the cars are driven. California’s suit was summarily dismissed by a federal court as non-justiciable."