- Duke Energy wants North Carolina's Business Court to hear a lawsuit the town of Carrboro filed against the utility company related to climate change.
- Carrboro is attempting to use its "corporate power" as a North Carolina municipality to dictate "state and national energy policy and regulations" and to enact a new tax on Duke's ratepayers, according to a court document filed Monday.
- Carrboro filed suit in December with the financial backing of the left-of-center activist group NC WARN.
Duke Energy wants North Carolina’s Business Court to hear a lawsuit the town of Carrboro filed against the utility company over its approach toward climate change. Duke labels Carrboro’s claims “unprecedented and ahistoric” in a court document filed Monday.
“Through this first-of-its-kind Complaint, Plaintiff the Town of Carrboro, North Carolina (‘Carrboro’ or ‘Plaintiff’) seeks to use its North Carolina corporate power … to regulate the emissions of utilities owned or operated by Defendant Duke Energy Corporation (‘Duke Energy’ or ‘Defendant’), both within North Carolina and across the country; to effect state and national energy policy and regulations; and to impose a form of taxation on Duke Energy to be paid by ratepayers,” Duke Energy’s lawyers wrote.
“The anomalous Complaint is required to be designated to the Business Court because it requests that the Court create a new municipal corporate power that has no basis in statutory or common law,” the court filing continued.
“This is the first case in North Carolina where a municipality has sought to deploy its limited corporate powers to regulate and tax a utility based on global climate change via purported state tort law,” Duke Energy’s lawyers wrote. “This is likely because the State’s authority over energy policy is reserved by the North Carolina Constitution to the People of North Carolina acting through the General Assembly.”
“For decades, the General Assembly has delegated much of this authority to the North Carolina Utilities Commission — and has not elected to delegate its authority to the single town of Carrboro. Carrboro does not have authority over North Carolina’s energy policy, much less interstate emissions,” the court filing explained.
“Carrboro cannot displace the General Assembly and the Utilities Commission, not to mention the legislatures and utility regulators of other states and the federal government. And Carrboro cannot regulate the rates charged by Duke Energy’s subsidiary utilities in multiple jurisdictions through unprecedented and ahistorical applications of North Carolina public nuisance, private nuisance, trespass, negligence, and gross negligence torts. Yet that is precisely what this Complaint seeks to do under the guise of Carrboro’s ‘corporate authority,” the document added.
“If this suit proceeds, then each of North Carolina’s 100 counties and 550+ municipalities could proceed in similar fashion against Duke Energy for its alleged role in the global climate crisis,” Duke Energy’s lawyers warned. “[T]his [Business] Court properly decides whether the corporate authority of Carrboro empowers it to take this unprecedented and ahistorical action to regulate Duke Energy’s utilities’ interstate emissions, to direct the energy and regulatory policy of North Carolina (and other states), and to impose financial burdens on ratepayers nationwide.”
Carrboro filed suit in December. The town is working with the left-of-center activist group NC WARN, which is funding the litigation.