Zeal of climate change activists collides with the First Amendment

April 14, 2016 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

Several state attorneys general have announced their intention to begin investigations of ExxonMobil.  They contend that the energy company may have violated state unfair business practice laws during the 1980s and 1990s by trying to mislead the public about the relationship among global warming, greenhouse gases, and fossil fuels.  Recently, these efforts took a new turn, when the Attorney General for the Virgin Islands served a subpoena on the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit Washington thinktank known for its climate change skepticism.  Remarkably, the subpoena seeks a substantial amount of information about CEI’s climate-change-related activities as well as its donors’ support of those activities.  In this post for The Hill‘s Congress Blog, I explain the significant First Amendment concerns that such global-warming-inspired subpoenas raise.

Also, listen to a pair of interviews on the topic as well: