Preserving Cities' Access to the Courts to Protect Taxpayers from Climate-Related Adaptation Costs
Adopted at the 90th Annual Meeting in 2022
- Scientific evidence is increasingly clear that human activities are largely responsible for the accelerating changes in the global climate [2016];
- Climate change poses a major threat to the health and livelihood of American cities, with impacts as wide-ranging as increased flooding, drought, reduced water supply, fire, public health impacts, habitat loss, and invasive species [2016];
- The United States Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy have stated that climate-driven hazards will require tens of billions of dollars in investments to strengthen the nation's water, wastewater, and energy systems [2015];
- Cities are already spending billions of dollars annually in infrastructure and support services to deal with climate change impacts and extreme events, such as heat waves, droughts, and torrential rain events [2017];
- Nine out of ten of America's costliest hurricanes have occurred in the last fifteen years with extreme weather events producing floods, droughts, wildfires, severe heat waves, catastrophic storms and sea level rise that threaten our drinking water supplies, power grid and transportation network, which undermine the quality of life, health, safety and economic well-being of our residents and businesses while significantly disrupting our city budgets [2021]; and
- Urging "local governments to prepare for and mitigate impacts associated with sea level rise" [2016];
- Urging Congress to support "efforts that will provide cities the tools they need to combat climate change" [2017];
- Affirming that the "costs of measures to repair and adapt to current and future climate change-related damages should not fall solely on the residents, workers, and businesses in our cities" [2019]; and
WHEREAS, major fossil fuel companies have known for nearly 50 years through their own research and experts that their products were dangerous and would cause the billions of dollars in climate change-related damages facing cities today; and
WHEREAS, major fossil fuel companies and related trade groups spent billions of dollars on public relations and lobbying campaigns to obscure the truth from the public and elected officials about the potentially catastrophic consequences of burning fossil fuels, even while some of those companies were protecting their own assets from rising seas and other impacts of climate change; and
WHEREAS, actions taken by major fossil fuel companies, which knowingly produced, marketed, promoted, and deceived the public about products that are causing climate change, are forcing cities to spend billions of dollars on measures to adapt to rising seas, more extreme storms, and other consequences of climate change; and
WHEREAS, since 2017, 20 city and county governments across eight states, as well as the attorneys general of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia, collectively representing more than 34 million people or 10.3% of the total population, have filed lawsuits to protect their residents and taxpayers by holding fossil fuel companies accountable for their fair share of the costs of climate damages and adaptation measures; and
WHEREAS, The United States Conference of Mayors, together with the National League of Cities and the International Municipal Lawyers Association, has filed amicus briefs in support of many of those climate damages lawsuits, because they "raise textbook claims under state law, seeking to allocate fairly a portion of the significant costs required to protect city and county residents from harms inflicted by Defendants' products;" and
WHEREAS, America's courts play a critically important role in our system of checks-and-balances, and in 1999 The United States Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution opposing state and federal legislative efforts to preempt local government access to the court system; and
WHEREAS, in 2019, The United States Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution opposing "any legislation, whether in Congress or state legislatures, that attempts to limit or eliminate cities' access to the courts by overriding existing laws or in any way giving fossil fuel companies immunity from lawsuits over climate change-related costs and damages;" and
WHEREAS, in 2021, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, through its Institute for Legal Reform program, published a report titled Municipality Litigation: A Continuing Threat that directly attacks cities' ability to represent and protect their residents by removing their access to the judicial system; and
WHEREAS, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called on states to modify their laws "to preclude or discourage" cities from serving as plaintiffs, by imposing "additional hurdles on would-be municipal plaintiffs" and limiting the use of outside contingency fee counsel, or by statutorily reducing the types and amounts of recoverable damages; and
WHEREAS, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has further urged states to reduce municipal suits by "limiting the range of defendants" who can be sued, restricting the causes of action under which municipalities might bring suit, and limiting the forums in which municipal plaintiffs can bring actions, the exact sort of attempts to limit or eliminate cities' access to the courts by overriding existing laws at issue in The United States Conference of Mayors' 2019 resolution,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors believes that no state should preempt or otherwise obstruct cities' abilities to represent and protect their residents; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors believes that the efforts of industry and third-party trade groups at the federal and state level to undermine and restrict cities' access to courts, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's recent efforts to "curb" affirmative municipal litigation, are a direct threat to municipal and taxpayer rights; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors categorically opposes any legislation, whether in Congress or state legislatures, that attempts to limit or eliminate cities' access to the courts by overriding existing laws or in any way giving fossil fuel companies immunity from lawsuits over climate change-related costs and damages; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors supports the rights of, and affirms the grounds on which, the 20 municipalities that have brought forth suits seeking accountability for the climate impacts they're suffering, and affirmatively supports the continued right for other cities and counties to do the same.