The California Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that would give the attorney general new powers to go after corporations that don’t tow the line on climate change theory. This, according to Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters, is in response to recent allegations that oil companies suppressed evidence of global warming for decades to keep the pressure off fossil fuels as an energy source. Walters says the bill is another case of political correctness run AMOK.
“This bill would basically give the Attorney General more latitude to civilly prosecute companies that essentially deny global warming: ‘They should have known it was real and if they deny it, then they are cheating their customers, cheating the public and are guilty of unfair business practices.’ ”
If passed into law, Walters says this would open the door for prosecutors to harass companies.
“It’s not necessarily (that) a corporation would wind up paying a big fine, it’s just that they could be bullied if they participated in the climate change debate in a way the attorney general didn’t like.”
Walters says the proposed legislation is one of those things where people are unaware of the long-term implications.
“Each one of these things that comes along, it’s, ‘Oh well, it’s OK. This is only going after those people that are climate (change) deniers. They’re not going to go after anybody else.’ But I think experience tells us when you increase the police powers of a state, and I don’t just mean a state, but any government, then they will use those police powers. And they can be easily misused.”
Walters was a guest on 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning Show with Doug McIntyre and Terri-Rae Elmer.
