Group linked to billionaire Koch brothers seeks end to New York role in greenhouse gas curb

Group linked to oilmen billionaires sues state to pull out of program

By BRIAN NEARING Staff writer, Wednesday, June 29, 2011

ALBANY -- A group tied to conservative Kansas petrochemical billionaires who fund campaigns to deny man-made climate change is pushing a lawsuit to kill New York's participation in a program to cut greenhouse gases.

The lawsuit seeks to bounce New York out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a 10-state program applied to electric power plants in the Northeast. Filed Monday in state Supreme Court in Albany County, the suit's lead plaintiff is Lisa Thrun, a Buffalo leader of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political action group supported by oilmen David and Charles Koch that is linked to the tea party movement.

RGGI is the nation's first state-level greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program, in which power plants must buy enough state-issued permits to cover emissions of carbon dioxide, which an international scientific consensus blames as the cause of man-made climate change....

Read more:
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Group-linked-to-billionaire-Koch-brothers-seeks-1445005.php