Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch is hailing the ruling of a New York federal appeals court that eight states, including Rhode Island, New York City and three nonprofit land trusts can sue major US electric utilities to force them to cut the greenhouse gases emitted by their power plants in 20 states.

The ruling, issued by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan yesterday, reinstates the lawsuits that a lower federal court tossed out in 2005. Originally filed in the summer of 2004, the lawsuits stemmed from the case State of Connecticut v. American Electric Power Company in which Lynch, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, and the attorneys general of California, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin argued that a challenge as immense as global warming must be dealt with in the courts as well as in the legislative and executive branches of government.

“It is error to equate a political question with a political case,” the court ruled. “Given the checks and balances among the three branches of our government, the judiciary can no more usurp executive and legislative prerogatives than it can decline to decide matters within its jurisdiction simply because such matters may have political ramifications.”

Lynch praised the decision, calling it “a well-timed shot in the arm for all advocates trying to combat global warming, for states’ rights and for the well-established common law doctrine of public nuisance.”

Lynch was referring to a section of yesterday’s ruling that reads, “The touchstone of a common law public nuisance action is that the harm is widespread, unreasonably interfering with a right common to the general public.”

Lynch explained, “Our grounds for suing are very conventional. If somebody causes a harm to the public, they must stop. The power plants we are suing are the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in the world. They bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility for global warming.”

The eight-state coalition names American Electric Power Co. Inc., Cinergy Co., Southern Co. Inc. of Georgia, Xcel Energy Inc. of Minnesota and the federal Tennessee Valley Authority in the suits.

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