SC joins lawsuit challenging climate change claims

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COLUMBIA — South Carolina has joined a states-on-states fight over national energy policy, a release from the S.C. Department of Justice says.

The dispute pits South Carolina and 18 states against five other states — California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. The five states have sued energy companies for billions of dollars in damages resulting from climate change.

“California and the other states threaten to impose ruinous penalties and coercive remedies that would affect energy and fuel consumption and production across the country,” the sometimes sharply worded release says. “The coalition raises the grave constitutional problems with California’s extraordinary tactics and asks the [United States] Supreme Court to take up a multi-state lawsuit.”

The 19-state coalition’s filing includes a motion, complaint and brief that argues traditional energy sources such as oil, natural gas and coal are essential for the nation to prosper, and that the U.S. federalist system gives one state no more power than another.

“Each state is sovereign, and these other states have no right to tell South Carolina what to do,” Alan Wilson, South Carolina’s attorney general, said in the release.

The other members of the 19-state coalition are Alabama (which is leading the action), Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.