Oregon officials name gas utility in climate deception lawsuit, in nationwide first

Northwest Oregon officials have announced the inclusion of a publicly traded gas company in a massive climate suit against fossil fuel producers, marking the first instance in which a gas utility has been named in such a case nationwide.

Multnomah County, which spans the Portland metropolitan region, has now added the state’s biggest natural gas utility, NW Natural, to a long list of defendants in a suit initially filed last year.

The plaintiffs are seeking $51.55 billion in "damages and equitable relief for harm caused to Multnomah County," accusing the defendants of engineering "a scheme to deceptively promote fossil fuel products as harmless and rapaciously selling the products."

In the amended version of the lawsuit, filed on Monday, Multnomah County alleged that NW Natural knowingly polluted the environment and "engaged in an enterprise of misrepresentation about the effects its products would have on the climate."

"NW Natural refused to disclose the truth about the nature and degree to which its fossil fuel products, and those of the subsidiaries it controls, could super heat and thereby harm Multnomah County," the lawsuit stated.

The county added the gas utility to the original lawsuit's long list of defendants, which included major fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, as well as other corporations and industry trade groups.

The plaintiffs accused the companies of promoting and selling fossil fuels "while knowing that carbon pollution emitted by their products into the atmosphere would likely cause deadly extreme heat events like that which devastated Multnomah County in late June and early July 2021."

That summer, the lawsuit explained, residents suffered their most extreme heat conditions on record, when a deadly weather system covered the region for several consecutive days and nights and destroyed both human life and county property.

The filing went on to blame the defendants for creating the pollutants that "were a cause of the 2021 extreme heat event," while also concealing just how dangerous the emissions from their products could be.

While the Multnomah County lawsuit is the first such climate case to include a utility among the defendants, it is one of numerous state- and local-led accountability lawsuits that have been launched against fossil fuel companies nationwide.

“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, vice president of legal and general counsel of 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,” Johl added.

In response to the new filing, David Roy, a spokesperson for NW Natural, said in an email that the utility "is aware of reports that Multnomah County added it to a suit" but had not received the complaint and could not comment in detail. 

"However, we believe adding the company to the suit now is an attempt to divert attention from legal and factual flaws in the case," Roy continued. "NW Natural will vigorously contest the County’s claims should they come to court."

A statement from ExxonMobil, meanwhile, said that "the baseless claims made in these politically motivated lawsuits do not advance any real solutions to address climate change."

"We’ll continue to fight these lawsuits and claims, and, more importantly, continue to be a leader in the energy transition by investing more than $20 billion in lower-emission initiatives from 2022 through 2027," the company added.

Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., counsel for Chevron Corporation, said in a statement that “addressing climate change requires a coordinated international policy response, not meritless local litigation over lawful and essential energy production."

"As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held in dismissing a similar New York City lawsuit, ‘such a sprawling case is simply beyond the limits of state law,’” he said.

The Hill has reached out to Shell and ConocoPhillips for further comment.