In the competitive world of messaging, imaging and idea-gerunding, you have to admire folks who don’t fear satire, in this case, the good people at the Center for Consumer Freedom.  Also included in the series of posters in the D.C. Metro, the Metro Center 13th & G entrance,  are ads arguing for the freedom to eat what you damn well feel like eating.

Pate de foie gras sounds good right around now.

The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog — always a good read — has a brief preview of pending oral arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, mentioning the NAM’s lobbying disclosure litigation. Citing Legal Times (subscription required), the blog summarizes in “Forget the Supremes, Our Eyes are on the D.C. Circuit“:

NAM v. Taylor: Is the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 constitutional? The National Association of Manufacturers doesn’t think so. Later this month, the D.C. Circuit will hear arguments over whether the law’s requirement that private associations reveal information about members who’ve given more than $5000 violates the First Amendment. Quentin Riegel, NAM’s deputy general counsel, says the internal deliberations of the association are not for the prying eyes of the government. “Some of our issues are quite controversial,” says Riegel. “Congress wants to know who of our members participated and that has the potential for damaging our member companies.”

For a summary of the litigation and primary documents, see this entry in the NAM’s Legal Beagle search engine.

Given the confusion prompted by the varied suits against the Department of Interior regarding its efforts to protect the polar bear — is that vague enough? — allow us to link to our legal department’s description of the litigation from the business associations, including the NAM: American Petroleum Institute v. Kempthorne

American Petroleum Institute v. Kempthorne
(U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia) — Environmental
Whether polar bear regulation should deny Alaskan industry greenhouse gas emissions exemption that applies to other states.

On May 15, the Department of the Interior issued an Interim Final Special Rule designating the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, based on its determination that global climate change, resulting from increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, threatens to injure the bears’ habitat by reducing polar ice. As part of this rule, the Department provided an exemption for greenhouse gas emissions, since they are part of a worldwide phenomenon than cannot be traced to particular activities in particular locations affecting the bears.

This exemption applies to greenhouse gas emissions in all states except Alaska. On August 27, the NAM joined with the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association and the American Iron and Steel Institute in filing a complaint challenging the Department’s omission of Alaska from the exemption. Manufacturing and other business operations in Alaska that may produce greenhouse gases should not be treated differently than those of companies in the other 49 states. This “Alaska Gap” exposes Alaskan operations to increased permitting burdens and/or the risk of enforcement by government authorities and citizen suits.

Our lawsuit challenges the Alaska Gap as arbitrary and capricious, since the best scientific data in the rulemaking record do not demonstrate enough of a connection between specific actions resulting in emissions and an effect on the polar bear.

The NAM supports the exemption for all states from permitting for greenhouse gas emissions that might affect polar bear habitat, not just every one but Alaska. The NAM is not challenging the decision to designate the polar bear as a threatened species.

Related Documents:
NAM complaint (8/27/2008)

API’s news release is here.

Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve law professor, comments at the Volokh Conspiracy, noting first that the suit challenges the differential treatment of the states. Adler: ”Not having read the briefs (yet), this seems to me like a more fruitful avenue of attack than a frontal challenge to the listing itself. Overturning a listing decision is quite difficult, and I don’t expect any of the lawsuits to be successful on that front.”

 P.S. The Alaska Gap? Do they sell mukluks?

A correction in The Washington Post:

Correction to This Article
An Aug. 31 A-section article incorrectly said that the American Petroleum Institute and four other business groups seek to challenge the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species. The groups are trying to enjoin the federal government from implementing a rule they call the “Alaska Gap,” which subjects projects in Alaska to extra scrutiny. The federal government issued the rule in May in conjunction with the announcement of the polar bear’s protected status.

Yes, just because Alaska sues and several trade associations sue, doesn’t mean we’re suing together.

The suit in which the NAM is participating is available here: American Petroleum Institute v. Kempthorne. API issued a news release, stating it sued “because it believes the U.S. Interior Department’s determination that the Endangered Species Act is ‘not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy’ makes sense, and that the interim final rule issued by the Department needs to be expanded to include Alaska as the Act is implemented. API member companies are not challenging the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species.”

Seems pretty clear.

P.S. The Post’s online style is admirable: It put the correction right at the top of the original article.

From today’s Washington Post, “Tales from the Cellphone Tour,” an informative and entertaining Business Section article about  Cyriac Roeding, a mobile technology expert who traveled the world to see how people in other cultures use their cell phones:

In South Africa, personal-injury lawyers have an infomercial television show that tells viewers to text the show and within 48 hours a lawyer will call.

Texting is big worldwide. And some poorer countries may never develop landline technology, jumping right into the mobile technology.

From the AP, “Industry groups file lawsuit over polar bear rule“:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five industry groups have sued the Interior Department over a rule to protect the polar bear that they say unfairly singles out business operations in Alaska for their contribution to global warming.

Groups representing the oil and gas, mining, and manufacturing industries asked a federal judge Wednesday to ensure that laws designed to protect the bear, which was recently designated a threatened species, are not used to block projects that release heat-trapping gases in the state.

The American Petroleum Institute was joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Mining Association, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Iron and Steel Institute in the lawsuit, which explicitly challenges three words — except in Alaska — that appear in a 62-page rule issued in May.

A copy of the suit, American Petroleum Institute v. Kempthorne, is available here.

API’s statement is here, and it’s a very useful pre-corrective:

The oil and natural gas industry is committed to the conservation of the polar bear and other marine mammals. Companies active in Arctic region energy exploration implement polar bear mitigation and avoidance programs, and they provide funding and logistical support for important polar bear studies carried out in the United States and in Canada. API filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday because it believes the U.S. Interior Department’s determination that the Endangered Species Act is “not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy‟ makes sense, and that the interim final rule issued by the Department needs to be expanded to include Alaska as the Act is implemented. API member companies are not challenging the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species. 

Lilly Ledbetter, the woman who took her employment discrimination case to the U.S. Supreme Court before finally losing, spoke at the Democratic convention in Denver last night. It was a standard convention speech — short, a statement of grievance followed by advocacy of legislation and praise for the candidacy of Sen. Obama. The remarks are here, and CQ Politics notes how other speakers cited her case. 

You can’t expect policy dissection in 90 seconds, and we’ll also just point to yesterday’s post, which lays out the anti-competitive, litigation-encouraging results of legislation that claims to fix Ledbetter v. Goodyear.

Oh, yes, we’ll also take credit for getting the convention to fix the misspelling of Ledbetter’s first name on the convention agenda. Yesterday, the incorrect Lily. Today, correctly, Lilly. Still wrong here, though. More…

Top union officials are on today’s Democratic convention schedule in Denver as well as people who have complaints about employers, the economy and unfairness. The day has been given the theme, “Renewing America’s Promise,” but we’d guess grievances will predominate.

Especially prominent, scheduled right before the keynote address from Virginia Senate candidate Mark Warner:

Lily Ledbetter
Her actions against Goodyear Tire led to the passage of the Fair Pay Restoration Act

Her first name is actually spelled Lilly, and the bill has only passed the House. But accuracy is less important than narrative at big political events.

In any case, it’s important to know that the legislation proposed to rectify the pay discrimination that Ms. Ledbetter alleged would remove ALL statutes of limitations in workplace discrimination complaints. Twenty years after the fact? You could still sue, even if all the other witnesses were dead. (The House passed H.R. 2831, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, by a 225-199 vote on July 31, 2007, but it was stopped in the Senate on the failure to invoke cloture.)

This “solution” actually increases the possibility of employment discrimination, in that there would be an incentive to NOT report complaints, to not bring problems to the attention of the bosses.

We’ve got a lengthier post on the topic at Point of Law.com, and employment lawyer Daniel Schwartz examines the related Fair Pay Act at Overlawyered.com.  We imagine the claims, complaints and supposed solutions will flow freely tonight, so at least we can offer some corrective facts.

More…

• Supreme Court ruling, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
• NAM Key Vote letter to Senate.April 22, 2008
• Business Coalition letter to Senate,
• NAM MANUFAct
• AFL-CIO commentary upon introduction of House bill

They’re REALLY trying to attract ob-gyns back to the state.

(Thanks to colleague Doug Goudie, who supposes that it’s a misspelling at a public dock.)

Roger Parloff, legal writer at Fortune, posts a seven-part series on State Farm’s pursuit of once-titanic, now-imprisoned trial laywer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, “State Farm v. Scruggs updates.” Scruggs went after State Farm for failing to spend even more money in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but how he did it…

In overview, in the unsettled remnants of the suits against State Farm that were originally brought by Scruggs (now being handled by other counsel, obviously), State Farm now alleges that Scruggs manufactured portions of his case against State Farm; induced State Farm insiders to violate their contractual duties; illegally broke into State Farm’s password-protected computer database; tampered with his own witnesses’ or clients’ computers to destroy evidence; compensated witnesses in unethical ways; violated one court’s injunction; and violated another court’s confidentiality orders….[snip]

While one judge has already found Scruggs in civil contempt for violating an injunction (a ruling now on appeal) and another has found that he did, in fact, compensate witnesses unethically, most of State Farm’s other accusations remain far from proven.

Normally we go to Insurancecoverageblog for Scruggs/State Farm updates, but this looks to be a useful overview. We do see that Sen. Biden’s campaign donated Scruggs-related contributions to charity before the Delaware Senator accepted the vice presidential nomination.

(Hat tip: Walter Olson)