NRCM responds
Statement by Jon Hinck, NRCM staff attorney
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers has filed a lawsuit in Kennebec County Superior Court against the Maine Board of Environmental Protection to stop the State Global Warming Pollution Standards for cars and trucks, which were adopted on December 1.
The carmakers’ suit makes three claims all basically saying “we didn’t get our way and that’s not fair.”>/p>
Carmakers don’t want to play by the rules that govern everyone else.
From seat belts, to airbags, to smog controls and now global warming pollution reductions, carmakers have a long history of fighting progress.
Carmakers are in denial about global warming much like they once denied the problem of rollovers and the benefit of seatbelts.
We would all be better off if carmakers invested in clean cars instead of lawyers and lawsuits against Maine and other states.
It is appalling that the car industry generates the most global warming pollution while refusing to do much of anything to reduce it.
The carmakers’ lawyers are grasping at straws. They have tried to avoid responsibility by making the same empty arguments in ten states, and so far each state has rejected them – Republican and Democratically-controlled alike.
