How Michael Bloomberg is buying state government staff

Over the last several years, states, cities, and counties have filed lawsuits against energy companies seeking billions of dollars to reimburse costs that they attribute to global climate change in order to fund local infrastructure projects, such as sea walls.

These lawsuits are examples of what the American Tort Reform Association calls “regulation through litigation” — the use of courts to achieve sweeping public policy objectives. It is a practice first used a generation ago with the tobacco industry.