Two environmental groups who claim to represent Wisconsin youth have filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Legislature and Public Service Commission, alleging that laws limiting utility regulators violate their rights.
Midwest Environmental Advocates and Our Children’s Trust, representing 15 young people in Wisconsin aged 8 through 17, filed the lawsuit on Friday in Dane County Circuit Court.
“We believe that (their constitutional rights are) being violated by the state continuing to pump greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and drive the climate crisis in ways that are harming our clients and profoundly disrupting their ways of life and jeopardizing the stability of their future,” Wilkin Gibart, executive director of the Midwest Environmental Advocates said.
The lawsuit, which alleges that a series of problems from flooding, to extreme heat, to a resurgence in lyme disease, is caused by climate change, could increase the costs of utilities for Wisconsin residents and is based on science that some say is unsettled.
Research from the Institute for Energy Research found that climate regulations affecting utility companies have played a significant role in the increase in electricity and utility costs. (RELATED: Victims’ Rights Law At Center of Bradley-Taylor Wisconsin Supreme Court Election)
“Since President Biden’s administration began, residential electricity prices nationwide have surged by an average of 23%, largely due to his climate agenda. This includes increasing the share of weather-dependent wind and solar power on the grid and mandating the electrification of transportation, heating, and cooking through various standards and regulations,” their 2024 study found.
There is also conflicting evidence on if climate change is responsible for natural disasters such as flooding and tornadoes. The Sixth U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report stated that the “attribution of certain classes of extreme weather (e.g., tornadoes) is beyond current modelling and theoretical capabilities.”
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