2 Western Cities Join Suit to Fight Global Warming

December 24, 2002
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE


WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - In a novel legal action, the City
Councils of Oakland, Calif., and Boulder, Colo., have voted
to join Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace in a lawsuit
charging two federal agencies with failing to conduct
environmental reviews before financing projects that the
cities say contribute to global warming.

The lawsuit contends that the agencies - the Export-Import
Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation - have
provided $32 billion in financing and insurance over the
last 10 years for fossil-fuel extraction projects overseas
like oil fields, pipelines and coal-fired power plants
without assessing the contribution those projects make to
global warming.

Spokesmen for the two federal agencies, which provide
financing for American corporations for projects that
commercial banks often deem too risky, said they could not
comment on the specifics of the lawsuit because they were
in litigation but they said they followed good
environmental practices.

Mayor Jerry Brown of Oakland, who is a former governor of
California and a former presidential candidate, said in an
interview today that the suit was necessary because
"there's been such an abject failure on the part of the
Bush administration to protect the people of this country
from the seriously deleterious effects of climate
disruption."

The Oakland city council, which voted on Dec. 17 to join
the suit, contends that global warming could cause the sea
levels to rise, putting the city's groundwater aquifers at
risk of saltwater contamination and threatening to flood
the airport and sewer systems.

Mayor Will Toor of Boulder, said in a statement that
Boulder officials, who voted to join the suit in August,
were disturbed by predictions that global warming would
bring more rain and less snow, which could threaten water
availability in much of the West, where the water supply
relies on gradual melting of the annual snowpack.

At the same time, Mr. Toor said that predictions of severe
drought could require water restrictions and might mean an
increased risk of wildfires, which could affect not only
human life but the city budget to the tune of millions of
dollars.

The Bush administration, which rejected joining the Kyoto
Treaty on climate change, has been increasingly criticized
for its climate policy, even though last year President
Bush accepted findings by a panel of American experts that
most of the global warming in recent decades had been
caused by human activity.

Last year, Mr. Bush set a climate policy that until 2012
would rely on voluntary measures by industries to slow
growth in emissions of carbon dioxide and the other
heat-trapping gases. He said more research was needed to
clarify the potential environmental risks of warming before
stronger measures were taken, although White House
officials said recently that they might speed up their
timetable in seeking compliance.

Bo Ollison, a spokesman for the Export-Import bank, said
that the bank had followed all necessary procedures in its
projects. "The bank is very confident that we apply all
rules, laws and regulations, including N.E.P.A., whenever
we do a transaction," he said.

Lawrence Spinelli, a spokesman for the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation, said, "All projects OPIC supports
must meet the strictest environmental standards." He added,
"Project sponsors must provide environmental impact
assessments, major projects are posted on the OPIC Web site
to allow for public comment, and, where appropriate, OPIC's
environmental staff will actually visit the host country of
a potential project to conduct due diligence."

The suit, however, filed in United States District Court in
San Francisco, says the two agencies have refused to review
the fossil-fuel projects they are involved in for their
effects on climate change and that such reviews are
required by the federal government.

"The case law is clear," said Brian Dunkiel, a Vermont
lawyer representing the environmental groups and the
cities. The National Environmental Policy Act, he said,
"requires agencies to look at the impacts of their
activities if a decision is made in the United States and
the activity causes impact on the United States or on the
global commons," meaning Antarctica and the international
oceans.

Mr. Dunkiel added, "The agencies say there is no
significant impact, but they have made that determination
without doing an environmental assessment."

He said the suit targets these two relatively obscure
federal agencies because the fossil-fuel projects that they
finance account for the release of significant carbon
dioxide emissions, both agencies "have virtually completely
evaded all" National Environmental Policy Act review, and
they were both designated by the administration as playing
a major role in the Bush/Cheney energy plan.

The suit seeks to have the agencies conduct the
environmental reviews on their future energy projects so
that their claims of no significant impact can be
scrutinized.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/24/politics/24ENVI.html?ex=1041768495&ei=1&en=761a408f013c6644