Cuomo Attacks Coal-Fired Electricity

The New York Attorney General position has become famous for launching legal attacks that upend corrupt financial markets. Eliot Spitzer won a seat in the governor's mansion by attacking Wall Street, and now his replacement, Andrew Cuomo, has a new target: the nation's largest power companies. His argument is that these companies have failed to account -- to their shareholders -- for the financial risk of building new coal-fired power plants.

With proposals to regulate carbon dioxide pollution to combat global warming a staple of political discourse these days, the cost of coal is higher than it appears, Cuomo has asserted, according to a story the New York Times broke this weekend. He sent subpoenas seeking internal documents to AES Corp., Dominion Resources Inc., Dynegy Inc., Peabody Energy Corp. and Xcel Energy Inc, according to the Associated Press. At its heart, this is an environmental initiative -- which is also familiar to the position of New York Attorney General.

Spitzer led coalitions of states in fights against Bush Administration rules that eased pollution limits on power plants, and he attacked many power companies directly for violations of the law. Cuomo's intent may or may not be to scuttle plans to build the 100 new coal-fired power plants that are on the drawing board, but at least his investigation can inject more truth into the equation, and make companies and their investors confront the realities of climate change -- and the costs that will come with mitigating further global warming. agenda.

A coalition of environmental groups and shareholder activists oppose the effort to create more than 100 coal-fired power plants currently under consideration. Jeffrey Lerner, a Cuomo spokesman, said the attorney general has been an advocate of environmental issues for "quite a long time," but Lerner called the probe a "straightforward use of the Martin Act" because it involved disclosure of financial information.

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