Supreme Court to Hear Pivotal Climate Case With Billions at Stake; FBI Arrests Chinese Woman in LA for Surveilling Son of Taiwanese President

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Oct. 5 regarding a lawsuit from Boulder, Colorado, demanding compensation from energy companies for local weather damage allegedly caused by global greenhouse gas emissions.

The question before the court, however, is not whether global warming theories hold water. It’s whether local courts throughout the United States should have the authority to extract billions of dollars from energy companies for damage allegedly caused by global emissions.

The energy companies argue that giving such power to local courts would allow municipalities to effectively impose a massive nationwide carbon tax with the potential to bankrupt the U.S. energy industry.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a Californian woman at Los Angeles International Airport on Oct. 4 on suspicion of acting as an unregistered agent for Beijing and surveilling a close relative of a Taiwanese government official, officials said.

“Heather” Zhang Wanying, 34, who lives in Irvine, Orange County, was taken into custody by FBI Los Angeles when she attempted to leave the United States for China, according to first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bilal Essayli.