## Facts

- Multiple states and the City of New York, along with private land-trust organizations, sued major electric power companies and the Tennessee Valley Authority that operate fossil-fuel power plants.
- Plaintiffs alleged defendants were among the largest U.S. carbon dioxide emitters and that their emissions substantially contributed to global warming.
- Plaintiffs asserted global warming caused or threatened harms to public health, coastal property, water supplies, natural resources, and conservation lands.
- The core cause of action was federal common law interstate public nuisance; plaintiffs pleaded state nuisance law as an alternative theory.
- Plaintiffs sought only equitable relief: judicially imposed emissions caps and mandatory annual reductions over an extended period.
- Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing (among other grounds) the claims presented a political question and that plaintiffs lacked Article III standing.

## Issues

1. Whether requests for court-ordered CO₂ emissions caps and reductions under federal common law public nuisance present a nonjusticiable political question committed to the political branches.
2. Whether plaintiffs had Article III standing to pursue injunctive relief aimed at reducing defendants’ greenhouse-gas emissions.

## Decision

- The district court granted defendants’ motions to dismiss.
- The court held the claims were barred by the political question doctrine and dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
- Having found nonjusticiability, the court did not definitively resolve standing and other threshold or merits arguments.

## Legal Principles

- Under the political question doctrine, federal courts lack power to decide disputes constitutionally committed to the elected branches or lacking judicially manageable standards.
- Applying the Baker v. Carr factors, a claim is nonjusticiable where adjudication would require initial policy determinations reserved to nonjudicial discretion.
- Requests that a court set economy-wide or multi-state greenhouse-gas emission limits were treated as matters of national environmental and energy policy inappropriate for judicial resolution.

## Conclusion

The district court dismissed the suits seeking judicially imposed CO₂ caps and reductions, concluding that regulating greenhouse-gas emissions at the scale alleged required policy choices and standards committed to Congress and the Executive, making the controversy a nonjusticiable political question beyond Article III jurisdiction.


Connecticut v. Am. Elec. Power Co., 406 F. Supp. 2d 265 (S.D.N.Y. 2005)