Multnomah County in Oregon on Monday added NW Natural to the list of defendants in its climate deception lawsuit, making the company the first-ever gas utility to face a climate lawsuit.
The county, which encompasses Portland, sued an array of fossil fuel interests last year for deceiving the public about the dangers of their products. It’s one of dozens of climate lawsuits municipalities and states around the United States have filed in recent years in a bid to hold the Big Oil accountable. None have yet reached a trial.
The Multnomah County lawsuit is unique in that it seeks damages for a specific extreme weather event: the heat dome that covered Portland in 2021, killing at least 69. The county seeks $50 million in damages for the heat dome, $1.5 billion for future damages, and $50 billion for climate adaptation.
“It is our purpose to hold accountable all of the companies that we allege engaged in wrongdoing associated with carbon pollution that has so negatively affected climate,” Jeffrey Simon, co-lead counsel for Multnomah County, told OPB following the revision to the list of defendants.
The lawsuit now names 24 defendants, 13 of which are oil and gas companies. The county also on Monday added the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine to the list.
A federal judge ruled in June that the case could proceed in Oregon state court—a loss for Big Oil, which had sought to move it to federal court.
Experts said the move to include NW Natural in the case could be the start of a movement to hold utilities accountable for their role in the fossil fuel economy and for deceiving the public about natural gas.
“Gas utilities have been significant players in the historic and ongoing deception campaigns to mislead the public about the dangers of fossil fuels,” Alyssa Johl, general counsel at the Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement. “NW Natural is now the first to be named as a defendant in a climate deception lawsuit, but it likely won’t be the last.”
“Gas utilities have known for decades that their products fuel the climate crisis, yet they continue to deceptively market methane gas as a climate solution,” she added.
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