Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel
Hey, look: Elections have consequences. New Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has announced that her office will be dropping the state from Republican-pushed lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Michigan will not be a party to lawsuits that challenge the reasonable regulations aimed at curbing climate change and protecting against exposure to mercury and other toxic substances,” Nessel said in a statement.
Prior Attorney General Bill Schuette had signed the state up for a series of conservative lawsuits against the EPA’s air regulations, most of which are seeking to bar the EPA from regulating the emission of greenhouse gasses such as methane. Those lawsuits were launched under the premise that methane, carbon dioxide, and other emissions did not count as “polluting” even if they were slowly raising the temperature of the planet and threatening the very future of human civilization. Nessel is bowing out; the other states will have to continue on their own.
As for Bill Schuette, he’s out of office after an unsuccessful bid for the governorship, and thank goodness for that. Schuette can expect quite a few of his old policies to be reversed under new state leadership. Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has already asked Nessel’s office to re-examine the constitutionality of Republican-backed, lame-duck-pushed requirements on signature-gathering groups, and the office is also altering its defense of a steep pay cut for Department of Corrections employees masquerading as a change of job title.
What can we say? Elections have consequences. Every election, in fact.