Support the preservation of court access to protect taxpayers from extreme weather costs

WHEREAS, the damages and associated costs of climate-driven extreme weather events are increasing, threatening the health, safety, and livelihood of Portland and other cities in Oregon; andWHEREAS, communities are vulnerable to an increasing number of "billion-dollar" extreme weather events that strain taxpayer resources, response and recovery capacity. Recent analyses have shown that there have been 192 weather and climate disasters in the U.S. in the last ten years, amounting to 6,543 deaths and over $1.5 trillion in total cost. A similar study by Swiss Re, a reinsurance company, found that severe thunderstorms alone in the U.S. incurred $60 billion in insured losses during 2023 [1], a record high; andWHEREAS, the impacts of climate change on wildfire risk is especially severe and costly; with studies directly linking coal, oil and gas companies with worsening wildfire risks in the Western United States. Wildfire risks and extreme heat events have a disproportionate impact upon residents of East Portland; andWHEREAS, assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for response to, and recovery from, extreme weather events is uncertain and may soon be unavailable due to budget cuts to the agency, steep reductions in staffing [2], public statements from the President that state and local governments should bear greater responsibility for the costs of disaster events [3], and recent reports that the administration's plans to "eliminate FEMA as we know it today [4];" andWHEREAS, as federal funding for disaster response and climate resilience is cut and insurance becomes unaffordable or unavailable, state and local governments must assume responsibility for the costs of extreme weather events; andWHEREAS, lawsuits hold private actors accountable for the substantial public costs arising from their conduct; andWHEREAS, Hawaii's recent lawsuit holding fossil fuel companies accountable for negligence and destruction of public resources was upheld and will continue in the face of opposition from the Trump administration; andWHEREAS, since 2017, dozens of local governments including Multnomah County, as well as attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia, collectively representing more than 25% of total U.S. population, have filed lawsuits to protect their residents and taxpayers by seeking to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for their deceptive and misleading conduct [5]; andWHEREAS, Exxon Mobil, Suncor, and other fossil fuel companies have repeatedly requested the US Supreme Court to block lawsuits alleging damaged from fossil fuel use. Similarly, the American Petroleum Institute, the largest oil and gas trade lobbying group in the U.S., announced that stopping climate lawsuits and climate superfund laws is one of their top legislative priorities in 2026 [6]; andWHEREAS, major fossil fuel companies have known for over 60 years through their own research and experts that their products were dangerous and would cause the events that are resulting in billions of dollars in extreme weather damage facing communities today; andWHEREAS, according to a Delaware lawsuit against fossil fuel companies [7], "In 1959, API [American Petroleum Institute] organized a centennial celebration of the American oil industry at Columbia University in New York City. One of the keynote speakers was the nuclear physicist, Edward Teller. Teller warned the industry that 'a temperature rise corresponding to a 10 per cent increase in carbon dioxide will be sufficient to melt the icecap and submerge ... [a]ll the coastal cities. Teller added that since 'a considerable percentage of the human race lives in coastal regions, I think that this chemical contamination is more serious than most people tend to believe.' Following his speech, Teller was asked to 'summarize briefly the danger from increased carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere in this century.' He responded that 'there is a possibility the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise;'" andWHEREAS, the lawsuit continues, "by 1965, concern over the potential for fossil fuel products to cause disastrous global warming reached the highest levels of the United States' scientific community. In that year, President Lyndon B. Johnson's Science Advisory Committee's Environmental Pollution Panel reported that a 25% increase in carbon dioxide concentrations could occur by the year 2000, that such an increase could cause significant global warming, that melting of the Antarctic ice cap and rapid sea level rise could result, and that fossil fuels were the clearest source of the pollution. Three days after President Johnson's Science Advisory Committee report was published, the president of API, Frank Ikard, addressed leaders of the petroleum industry in Chicago at the trade association's annual meeting. Ikard relayed the findings of the report to industry leaders, saying, 'The substance of the report is that there is still time to save the world's peoples from the catastrophic consequence of pollution, but time is running out.' Ikard also relayed that 'by the year 2000 the heat balance will be so modified as possibly to cause marked changes in climate beyond local or even national efforts" and quoted the report's finding that "the pollution from internal combustion engines is so serious, and is growing so fast, that an alternative nonpolluting means of powering automobiles, buses, and trucks is likely to become a national necessity;'" andWHEREAS, the lawsuit continues, "In 1968, API received a report from the Stanford Research Institute, which it had hired to assess the state of research on environmental pollutants, including carbon dioxide. The assessment endorsed the findings of President Johnson's Scientific Advisory Council from three years prior, stating, 'Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000, and ... there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe.' The scientists warned of 'melting of the Antarctic ice cap' and informed API that 'past and present studies of CO2 are detailed and seem to explain adequately the present state of CO2 in the atmosphere.' In 1969, the Stanford Research Institute delivered a supplemental report on air pollution to API, projecting with alarming particularity that atmospheric CO2 concentrations would reach 370 parts per million ("ppm") by 2000, almost exactly what it turned out to be (369 ppm). The report explicitly connected the rise in CO2 levels to the combustion of fossil fuels, finding it 'unlikely that the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 has been due to changes in the biosphere;'" andWHEREAS, the lawsuit continues, "In 1972, API members, including Fossil Fuel Defendants, received a status report on all environmental research projects funded by API. The report summarized the 1968 SRI report describing the impact of fossil fuel products, including Defendants', on the environment, including global warming and attendant consequences. Fossil Fuel Defendants and/or their predecessors-in-interest that received this report include, but were not limited to: American Standard of Indiana (BP), Asiatic (Shell), Ashland (Marathon), Atlantic Richfield (BP), British Petroleum (BP), Chevron Standard of California (Chevron), Esso Research (ExxonMobil), Ethyl (formerly affiliated with Esso, which was subsumed by ExxonMobil), Getty (ExxonMobil), Gulf (Chevron, among others), Humble Standard of New Jersey (ExxonMobil/Chevron/BP), Marathon, Mobil (ExxonMobil), Pan American (BP), Shell, Standard of Ohio (BP), Texaco (Chevron), Union (Chevron), Skelly (ExxonMobil), Colonial Pipeline (ownership has included BP, ExxonMobil, and Chevron entities, among others), Continental (ConocoPhillips), Dupont (former owner of Conoco), Phillips (ConocoPhillips), and Caltex (Chevron);" andWHEREAS, the lawsuit continues, "In 1979, Exxon's W. L. Ferrall distributed an internal memorandum. The memo reported that 'The most widely held theory [about global warming] is that: The increase [in carbon dioxide] is due to fossil fuel combustion; increasing CO2 concentration will cause a warming of the earth's surface; the present trend of fossil fuel consumption will cause dramatic environmental effects before the year 2050. The potential problem is great and urgent.' The memo stated that if limits were not placed on fossil fuel production: Noticeable temperature changes would occur around 2010 as the [carbon dioxide] concentration reaches 400 ppm [parts per million]. Significant climatic changes occur around 2035 when the concentration approaches 500 ppm. A doubling of the pre-industrial concentration [i.e., 580 ppm] occurs around 2050. The doubling would bring about dramatic changes in the world's environment. Those projections proved remarkably accurate and annual average atmospheric CO2 concentrations surpassed 400 parts per million in 2015 for the first time in millions of years. Limiting the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to 440 ppm, or a 50% increase over preindustrial levels, which the memo said was 'assumed to be a relatively safe level for the environment,' would require fossil fuel emissions to peak in the 1990s and non-fossil energy systems to be rapidly deployed. Eighty percent of fossil fuel resources, the memo calculated, would have to be left in the ground to avoid doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Certain fossil fuels, such as shale oil, could not be substantially exploited at all;" andWHEREAS, much like opioid and tobacco companies, major fossil fuel companies and related trade groups spent billions of dollars to obscure the truth from the public and elected officials about the potentially catastrophic consequences of fossil fuel use; andWHEREAS, numerous local and county governments received crucial funding through litigation settlements with tobacco and opioid companies to ameliorate harm caused by deceptive company marketing and statements about the dangers of their products; andWHEREAS, sixteen Republican attorneys general have called for a legal "liability shield" for Big Oil modeled after the 2005 law protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits [8]; andWHEREAS, state bills aimed at blocking communities from pursuing any accountability measures against the fossil fuel industry have already been introduced in Utah [9] and Oklahoma [10] as part of a larger coordinated effort to strip communities of their right to take Big Oil to court; andWHEREAS, both the United States Conference of Mayors [11] and the National Association of Counties [12] have passed similar resolutions preserving communities' access to the courts to protect taxpayers from climate-related adaptation costs [13]; andWHEREAS, America's courts play a critically important role in our system of checks-and-balances, and any legislation, whether in Congress or state legislatures, that attempts to limit or eliminate Oregonians' access to court by preempting existing laws or giving fossil fuel companies immunity from lawsuits over damages and associated costs undermines the rule of law.NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that Portland categorically opposes any legislation, whether in Congress or state legislatures, that attempts to limit or eliminate access to court by preempting existing laws or giving fossil fuel companies immunity from any laws or lawsuits seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for deceptive conduct and the costs of climate change; andBE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Portland affirmatively supports the rights of cities, counties, tribes, and states to bring litigation and legislation seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the climate change-driven harms they and their communities are suffering.