Lawyers face major penalties for defending communities and ecosystems.
This article by Mark Hand was published in Think Progress, February 5, 2018.
Oil and gas companies are moving beyond simply filing lawsuits against municipalities that pass ordinances banning drilling and other types of industrial activity. In recent months, the energy industry, along with a state attorney general, has started going after the lawyers who are using novel legal arguments to protect small towns and the environment.
Since the dawn of the environmental movement, polluters have faced resistance from local residents and environmental advocates. But as industry encroached deeper into the natural world, a new legal movement emerged to end the centuries-old American legal tradition that defined nature as property. MORE…