Residents Challenge Climate Change Rules at Delaware’s High Court

Delaware regulators have imposed costly and unlawful climate change regulations on industry in violation of legislative directives, according to three citizen activists who took their case to the state’s highest court.

But before the Delaware Supreme Court can address the substantive questions raised in the residents’ lawsuit, it first must resolve a lower court ruling that “failed to apply the correct legal test for standing,” Richard Abbott, their lawyer, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

The Superior Court of Delaware ruled in June that residents David T. Stevenson, R. Christian Hudson, and John A. Moore did not have legal standing to challenge the state’s participation in a regional climate change agreement.

The trial court judge “applied the wrong legal standard,” their lawyer told The Daily Signal.

The three men had argued that the agreement’s regulatory restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions would raise their electricity bills. But Judge Richard Stokes decided that they failed to demonstrate this would be the case, and therefore did not have standing.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, is a multistate agreement that currently includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

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