By Dana Drugmand

Several Colorado communities have now joined the growing wave of municipalities taking legal action against fossil fuel companies and seeking compensation for the impacts of climate change.

The city and county of Boulder and the county of San Miguel on Tuesday announced a new lawsuit against ExxonMobil and Suncor, two of the largest oil companies with active operations in Colorado. It’s the first climate liability lawsuit filed by an interior, non-coastal community in the U.S.

The Colorado communities—like coastal communities in California and New York City—are demanding that fossil fuel companies help pay for the costs associated with climate change impacts. They allege that these companies long knew about the danger of unrestrained fossil fuel burning and deliberately downplayed the risk to policymakers and the public. As a result, communities face severe climate impacts and rising costs.

“Climate change impacts are already happening and they are only going to get worse,” said Boulder County Commissioner Elise Jones. “In fact, Colorado is one of the fastest warming states in the nation. Climate change is not just about sea level rise. It affects all of us in the middle of the country as well.”

“Our communities and our taxpayers should not shoulder the cost of climate change adaptation alone. These oil companies need to pay their fair share,” added Boulder Mayor Suzanne Jones.

In Colorado, climate change affects fragile high-altitude ecosystems and hits at the heart of these communities’ local economies, affecting roads and bridges, parks and forests, buildings, farming and agriculture, the ski industry, and public open space. Over the next few decades, Colorado communities are expected to spend more than $100 million to deal with those impacts.

A report presented to the Boulder County Board of County Commissioners last week outlined the likely climate impacts and associated costs. Key findings include an increase in wildfire risk and severe drought, rising public health costs due to extreme heat, increasing strain on urban drainage systems and roads due to flooding, and a greater need for cooling in government-owned buildings.

Boulder County faces an estimated $96 million to $157 million in mitigation costs through 2050, with the city of Boulder facing $16 million to $36 million in costs.  

“Cities and counties just cannot afford to shoulder this burden alone,” Commissioner Jones said.

The city of Boulder, Boulder County and San Miguel County filed the lawsuit in state district court with legal support from EarthRights International, the Niskanen Center, and Hannon Law Firm. The suit brings a public nuisance cause of action against Exxon and Suncor, following similar claims brought by eight California communities and New York City.

“This suit is the first of its kind in the mountain West and it demonstrates that climate change impacts are being felt around the country including here in Colorado,” said Marco Simons, general counsel of EarthRights International.

The Manufacturer’s Accountability Project, an initiative of the National Association of Manufacturers designed to push back against these climate lawsuits, was among the first to respond to the new lawsuit.

“Today in Colorado, we’re seeing another example of trial attorneys attempting to enrich themselves at the expense of manufacturers and manufacturing workers,” the group said in a statement. “These baseless lawsuits do nothing to improve the environment and are a waste of taxpayer resources. While manufacturers are working toward meaningful solutions and are reducing emissions, cities are wasting time suing them for making products Americans rely on for their everyday lives.”

According to Simons, EarthRights International has agreed to take on the case pro bono. He said it is the fossil fuel companies that have profited at the expense of local communities

“For over 50 years, Suncor and Exxon have known that fossil fuels would cause severe climate impacts,” Simons said. “To enhance their own profits, they concealed this knowledge and spread doubt about science they knew to be correct. Now, communities all over this country are left to foot the bill.”

“This lawsuit challenges the reckless behavior of all fossil fuel companies,” said Emma Bray of Earth Guardians and one of the youth plaintiffs in the case Martinez v. Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. “How does the oil and gas industry justify business that will make the Earth uninhabitable?”

By Karen Savage

Boulder, Colo. is poised to become the next municipality to file suit against the fossil fuel industry for damages caused by climate change.

City officials hope to persuade several other Colorado communities to join them in the suit. The defendants will be a yet-to-be-determined number of fossil fuel companies that operate in Colorado.

“While most city efforts are typically focused within municipal boundaries, the issues of climate change cannot be addressed within a vacuum,” said Kendra Tupper, Boulder’s chief sustainability officer.

“The basis is that local governments are expending real money to manage the harms and the consequences of certain companies’ actions,” said Jonathan Koehn, the city’s regional sustainability coordinator.

The city will partner with a pro bono law firm from Washington D.C., which will work with local attorneys on the case. Koehn declined to name the law firm until a retainer agreement is signed, which he anticipates will happen within the next 30 days.

The city will seek compensation for damages that have already occurred and to pay for projects needed to adapt to future climate impacts.

“It’s important to know that a changing climate is not only an issue for coastal communities, but certainly small, large, everything in between is going to be affected,” said Koehn. “We are experiencing real impacts on a daily basis—we only have to look outside our windows to see the health of our forests, forest fires on the horizon, floods on a regular basis—and that’s not just in the mountains, on the plains we’re seeing the impacts as well.”

Colorado is one of the fastest-warming states in the country, with temperatures rising 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 30 years. The impacts of extreme heat will hit Colorado’s urban populations hard, worsening air quality and threatening public health. In 2016, metropolitan Denver, an area that includes Boulder, ranked as the eighth worst urban area for ozone pollution.

The Rocky Mountains’ dwindling snowpack will also have far-reaching impacts on people and agriculture, leading to longer and more damaging droughts and wildfires, not to mention its ski industry.

“Unfortunately, the current federal administration has taken many actions to roll back legislation or rescind previous commitments related to climate change,” Tupper said. “While this has potentially devastating consequences in terms of reversing progress on a dire problem facing humanity, it has reinforced the crucial role that local governments must play in this energy transformation.”

Colorado has become a hub of the fracking industry, with the number of the controversial wells skyrocketing since 2000. Centered in Weld County, which is adjacent to Boulder County, the fracking industry has drawn significant opposition because of fears it pollutes air and drinking water. Four Colorado communities have attempted to ban fracking, with little success so far.

Koehn said litigating large-scale climate issues against major fossil fuel companies from the community level—particularly from a small community like Boulder—may seem inefficient, but it is necessary.

“As our literacy on this issue has evolved, really so has this notion that local jurisdictions like Boulder and every other city are on the front lines when it comes to a changing climate,” said Koehn.

“It’s our responsibility as a local government to make sure that we are doing everything we can to protect the welfare of our community, this is, while daunting, the right thing and incredibly necessary.