News & Analysis
October 11, 2024
Multnomah County, Oregon, this week became the first U.S. community to sue a gas utility for climate deception, after the county expanded its 2023 case against several fossil fuel companies to include NW Natural, a regional gas utility accused of misleading consumers about the harms of its products. The county’s $52 billion lawsuit is seeking to hold major oil and gas companies, including Exxon, Chevron, and Shell, as well as industry enablers such as consulting firm McKinsey and Company, accountable for their role in fueling the deadly 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome, which killed 69 county residents.
“NW Natural engaged in an enterprise of misrepresentation about the effects its products would have on the climate, and that the use of its products could cause an extreme heat event to occur,” the updated filing states. The county also added the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, a local climate denial front group, as a defendant.
“As we learned in this country when we took on big tobacco,” Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said in a press release, “this is not an easy step or one I take lightly but I do believe it’s our best way to fight for our community and protect our future.”
Multnomah County’s climate deception lawsuit already secured a major win against Big Oil’s challenges when a federal court ruled this summer that the case can proceed in state court where it was originally filed, despite the oil companies’ arguments.
NW Natural has been scrutinized for its opposition to electrification policies in Oregon, including funding a “grassroots” front group to oppose a ban on gas hookups in new residential buildings in Eugene and hiring a scientist to raise uncertainty about recent scientific studies on the health risks of gas during public testimony in Multnomah County. Multiple elected officials and environmental leaders in Oregon also called for the state’s attorney general's office to investigate NW Natural after the gas utility distributed workbooks with allegedly misleading claims about the safety of methane gas to schoolchildren.
Multnomah County also argues that NW Natural has advertised its commitment to a carbon neutral future, but “has not implemented any operational changes that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon, and it deceptively distorts to the public any initiatives aimed at lowering emissions as an infringement on the consumer’s ‘freedom of choice.’”
Days after being named in Multnomah County’s lawsuit, NW Natural was also sued by a group of customers who argue that the company’s carbon “offset” program actually increases its pollution.
Though they often advertise “natural” gas — also known as methane gas — as more environmentally friendly than other forms of fossil fuels, documents show that gas utility companies have known for decades that their products harm the environment and accelerate the climate crisis. A 2021 report by the Energy and Policy Institute characterized “striking parallels to the ongoing investigations into what ExxonMobil and the oil industry knew decades ago.”
Multnomah County could be the first among many governments to take utilities to court for deceiving the public about their products’ role in the climate crisis. Earlier this year, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told the Detroit News that she would not rule out including utilities in a climate deception lawsuit her office is working to bring.
