ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Eight states and New York City will sue to force five of the country’s largest power producers to cut carbon dioxide emissions and curb global warming, according to a draft statement obtained by The Associated Press.

Attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, along with New York City’s corporation counsel, will file the public nuisance suit Wednesday in federal district court in Manhattan, the statement said.

The targeted companies own 174 fossil fuel-burning power plants that produce 646 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, about 10 percent of the nation’s total, according to the July 16 document. They are: American Electric Power Co., Southern Co., Xcel Energy Inc., Cinergy Corp. and the federal Tennessee Valley Authority.

Carbon dioxide is believed to be one of the main culprits of global warming. The greenhouse gas is produced when coal, gasoline and other fossil fuels burn.

If nothing is done, climatologists forecast continued temperature increases that will cause rising tides, droughts, and other climate disruptions.

The statement said CO2 emissions can be reduced by increasing efficiency at coal-burning plants, switching from coal to cleaner burning fuels, investing in energy conservation and using clean energy sources such as wind and solar power.

Marc Violette, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, declined to comment on details but said the lawsuit would, “for the first time, put global warming on the litigation map.”

“This is a precedent-setting, first-of-its-kind lawsuit,” he said.

Scott Segal, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a group that includes Atlanta-based Southern, said the lawsuit is frivolous.

“If you gave the facts of global climate change to a first-year law student, and they recommended a public nuisance case, they would get an “F,”‘ Segal said. “The idea that any one company’s emissions are responsible for global climate change is more political science than environmental science.”

Jeffrey Marks, with the National Association of Manufacturers, which represents AEP, Cincinnati-based Cinergy and Southern, said in an e-mail that regulating carbon dioxide emissions would severely depress the U.S. economy, limit the use of fossil fuels, and hinder environmental improvements.

Pat Hemlepp, a spokesman for Columbus, Ohio-based AEP, said his company has been an industry leader on climate change issues.

“We have voluntarily accepted a cap on carbon emissions and are moving toward a 10 percent reduction by 2006,” he said. “A lawsuit is not a constructive way to deal with climate change. There is nothing one company, five companies, or one country can do to resolve global warming. It will require a global commitment including developing nations.”

Paul Adelmann, a spokesman for Xcel Energy, based in Minneapolis, and Kathy May, spokeswoman for TVA, headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., both said their utilities were taking voluntary steps to reduce CO2 emissions.

Xcel plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 12 million tons by 2009 and will triple its wind generating capacity to 2,500 megawatts by 2012, Adelmann said.

May said the TVA was the first utility in nation to participate in the Department of Energy’s Climate Challenge, a voluntary program begun in 1995 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Neither Adelmann nor May had seen the lawsuit.

AP-ES-07-20-04 2123EDT