Advocacy groups and elected leaders are trying to weaponize consumer protection acts around the country to open new, national public-policy branches of government: state and local courts. Consumer protection lawsuits are filed—not to protect local consumers—but skirt Congress, state legislatures and regulatory agencies to drive national policy agendas.

These cases often involve important issues, including climate change and sustainability. Developing solutions, including figuring out how to source and use energy to sustain both modern life and the planet, are among the most pressing public policy matters of our day. Establishing the government's priorities for them are squarely within the domain of legislatures and regulators, which have the institutional tools to address these issues and have been hard at work on them.