The Daily Camera recently reported that the city is going to join an effort to sue large fossil fuel companies for their contributions to climate change.
It is easy to dismiss such actions as symbolic grandstanding. But many people may not be aware that Boulder actually joined the first wave of climate change litigation more than 15 years ago — and that Boulder’s suit had a major impact.
Back in 2002, Boulder joined with Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to sue two large federal agencies — the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the Export Import Bank (ExIm). Both of these agencies use public funds to support U.S. companies investing in risky projects in other countries, largely in the developing world. The suit targeted the fact that both agencies invested heavily in fossil fuel infrastructure, including oil and gas development, pipelines, coal mines and power plants. In fact, together OPIC and ExIm were averaging more than $3 billion a year in such investments — and projects they had financed accounted for nearly 10 percent of emissions worldwide!
The National Environmental Policy Act requires that agencies evaluate the effect of their actions on the U.S. environment by conducting environmental impact studies. Because these projects took place in other countries, OPIC and ExIm never did impact studies, assuming there was no effect on the U.S.. But this was a nonsensical approach when it comes to climate change. Carbon dioxide is a globally well-mixed gas, so the climate impact on the U.S. is essentially the same wherever the emissions take place. We sued the federal government to require the agencies to consider the impact of their lending on climate change.
I was mayor when Boulder helped file the suit, and we received lots of criticism. For example, the Rocky Mountain News editorialized that we were wasting taxpayer resources, grandstanding, and should stick to local issues. But here is the thing — climate change may be a global phenomenon, but the impacts are very local. This area is very vulnerable to these impacts — increased risks of catastrophic wildfires, greater likelihood of droughts, increased flood risks, not to mention the loss of alpine ecosystems and the negative impacts to our ski industry. A recent study found that if we don’t limit emissions, the average Boulder summer will go from the historical pattern of five days a year over 95 degrees to 75 days a year! What could be a greater matter of local concern than these kinds of changes?
At that time, with President Bush in the White House, there was no federal leadership on climate change, leaving it to states and cities to get anything done (sound familiar?). So we took action as a city and filed the suit.
Now, the federal courts do not act quickly. It took years of legal battles to settle the question that we had standing to sue (we did). But by 2009 the suit was settled, with a ground-breaking agreement that the agencies would consider the impacts of their decisions on greenhouse gas emissions, invest more in renewable energy, and OPIC agreed to reduce emissions by at least 20 percent from projects it funded. And this helped set the stage for President Obama’s 2013 action to essentially ban the use of OPIC or ExIm funds for coal plants. Plus, the legal arguments in our case were used in the landmark 2009 Supreme Court case that settled the fact that the EPA must regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. This record suggests that the city suing the fossil fuel giants may be far more than just symbolic grandstanding.
Now, there are legitimate criticisms of the city of Boulder suing on climate change — notably the irony that a town that has limited housing so much that more than 50,000 people a day commute in every day, most in individual, fossil fuel powered cars, is bringing the suit. And yes, the city should take bold action to remedy our housing crisis. But I am still glad to see the council leading on climate change litigation.
Will Toor is a former Boulder mayor and Boulder County commissioner. Email: willtoor@gmail.com
