A Natural Gas Company Just Became the First to Be Sued Over Climate Change

Gas utilities "continue to deceptively market methane gas as a climate solution."

Rapacious Conspiracy

For the first time ever, a natural gas company is being sued by a local government for misleading customers about fossil fuels and the dangers they pose to the environment.

As the New York Times reports, Oregon's Multnomah County has added the gas utility NW Natural to its lawsuit that includes Shell, Exxon, McKinsey, and dozens of other companies for allegedly hiding or obfuscating their roles in climate degradation.

In the suit, which also named the Koch and big oil-funded nonprofit Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, the county alleges that NW Natural and other entities conspired "rapaciously" to sell their services and products while covering up their own parts in climate change.

This "scheme," the suit alleges, resulted in the Pacific Northwest's deadly "heat dome" temperatures in 2021 that killed at least 69 people in Multnomah County alone.

"More people died from the June 2021 heat wave in Multnomah County than died from heat in the entire state of Oregon in the past 20 years," the suit reads.

This lawsuit has some serious claims against its defendants — and is apparently unique in its approach.

Name and Shame

Experts say that although oil companies are routinely named in climate accountability lawsuits, this was the first known instance of a gas utility appearing as a defendant — even though they're just as implicated as their big oil counterparts.

Alyssa Johl, the general counsel and vice president of legal for the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement that gas companies are "significant players in the historic and ongoing deception campaigns to mislead the public about the dangers of fossil fuels."

"Gas utilities have known for decades that their products fuel the climate crisis," Johl continued, "yet they continue to deceptively market methane gas as a climate solution."

Primary among NW Natural's alleged crimes is its role in promoting methane gas as safe for the environment even though, as the suit notes, it's "80 times more potent than carbon dioxide" at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

In an interview with Portland's Street Roots weekly newspaper, doctor and environmental advocate Melanie Plaut echoed Johl's sentiments about methane.

"Everything we burn we breathe," Plaut said, "and NW Natural has done everything it can to be sure we keep burning methane."

In a statement to the local broadcaster KOIN, NW Natural denied the county's allegations and insisted that the local government was the one trying to obfuscate.

"We believe adding the company to the suit now," the gas utility's statement says, "is an attempt to divert attention from legal and factual flaws in the case."

Tossing accusatory volleys is par for the course in these sorts of lawsuits — but in this case, Multnomah County does appear to have science on its side.

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