Six months ago, officials in Imperial Beach joined six other California coastal communities in a first of its kind lawsuit: Demanding that 18 energy companies in the oil and coal sectors pay the cities for damages associated with rising sea levels and other effects of a warming planet.

Now, one of those companies — ExxonMobil — has fired back with its own aggressive legal strategy. In papers filed Monday in Texas, attorneys for the oil giant claim the cities sang a different tune about climate change when they offered bonds to investors.

“Notwithstanding their claims of imminent, allegedly near-certain harm, none of the municipalities disclosed to investors such risks in their respective bond offerings, which collectively netted over $8 billion for these local governments over the last 27 years,” ExxonMobil lawyers argued in a 60-page court petition.

ExxonMobil attorneys also want to question under oath many of the officials who signed off on their respective community’s lawsuits against the energy companies. The list includes three members of Imperial Beach’s city government, including Mayor Serge Dedina.


“We are reviewing Exxon’s petition, but this appears to be the same kind of bullying tactic that the industry uses again and again to avoid accountability,” Dedina said in an email to the Union-Tribune.

A young woman wades into water under the Imperial Beach Pier in April 2017. City officials joined six other California coastal communities in a lawsuit against oil companies, claiming the corporations should pay for the effects of climate change. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune )

The seven communities filed their suits in their local Superior Court systems in July 2017, alleging greenhouse gas emissions caused by the companies contributed to a warming planet, leading to coastal flooding, beach erosion and rising infrastructure costs.

Imperial Beach’s lawsuit said coastal flooding would lead to more than $38 million in damages and estimated “economic vulnerability” to property in association to erosion at more than $106 million.


The Imperial Beach lawsuit said the fossil-fuel companies — including Chevron, Conoco Phillips and Royal Dutch Shell — “have known for nearly a half century” their products’ impacts “could be catastrophic” to the climate but “nevertheless engaged in a coordinated, multi-front effort to conceal and deny their own knowledge” of those threats.

“The City of Imperial Beach and our taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for damages from sea level rise knowingly caused by Exxon and other fossil fuel companies,” Dedina said. “That’s what our lawsuits are all about and Exxon should own up to what they’ve done instead of resorting to the usual industry playbook.”

But ExxonMobil said it “has long acknowledged the risks presented by climate change” and said it has supported the Paris climate accords and backed the idea of developing a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

Exxon claims the officials from the seven California communities took their cues from a workshop held in La Jolla in June 2012 at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.


Organizers of the meeting included the Climate Accountability Institute, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Naomi Oreskes, professor of History and Science Studies at UC San Diego.

A 36-page report delivered after the workshop wrapped up said attendees discussed legal strategies used in the 1990s by states to wrest billions from tobacco companies and how that could apply to climate change and “major fossil fuel companies.”

Oreskes declined to comment on the ExxonMobil legal action.

Imperial Beach released an assessment in September 2016 that said a rise of 1.6 feet would put multiple neighborhoods in the town at risk, expose two elementary schools to routine tidal flooding and affect wastewater and stormwater treatment facilities.


The seven lawsuits field by the seven California communities have not been heard yet.

Exxon Mobil’s attorneys, in their court petition, said the Dallas-based company is considering filing a lawsuit of its own.

On Wednesday morning, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the nation’s largest city is filing a lawsuit similar to those put forth by the seven coastal communities in California.

The New York lawsuit singles out five fossil fuel companies, including Exxon and Shell, seeking billions in damages to fund “climate change resiliency measures that the City needs to implement.”


“As climate change continues to worsen, it’s up to the fossil fuel companies whose greed put us in this position to shoulder the cost of making New York safer and more resilient,” de Blasio said in a statement.

A Shell spokesman told The Associated Press that the company believes “climate change is a complex societal challenge that should be addressed through sound government policy and cultural change to drive low-carbon choices for businesses and consumers, not by the courts.”

Reporter Joshua Emerson Smith contributed to this story.

This story was updated Wednesday morning to include news of the New York City lawsuit.


Business


rob.nikolewski@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1251 Twitter: @robnikolewski