New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (D) filed suit yesterday against General Electric for the company’s three decades of dumping PCBs into the Hudson River. The state’s suit does not address the environmental or health effects of GE’s pollution, which are the subject of an ongoing EPA inquiry, but rather pursues monetary damages against the company because PCB contamination has made it difficult and expensive for the state to maintain a shipping canal that links the Hudson to Lake Champlain. Spitzer, who campaigned on a pledge to hold GE accountable for its pollution, said he hopes this action will open the door for many other suits against the company. Enviros applauded the lawsuit. New York Gov. George Pataki’s (R) administration warned that the suit could interfere with other state actions against GE, but some enviros speculated that Pataki simply doesn’t like being overshadowed on environmental matters by the new, Democratic attorney general.
