CITY Cty

see local regulations<div>
</div><div>see also Cities sub-national</div><div>
<div>12/15
<div>=</div><div>=https://www.courthousenews.com/big-oil-must-face-california-city-and-county-lawsuits-over-climate-change/cn seems legit<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">sAN FRANCISCO (CN) — The Ninth Circuit affirmed Tuesday that lawsuits seeking to hold the world’s largest energy companies financially liable for climate change and the rising sea levels that threaten California’s coastal communities should stay in state court, setting the stage for a legal offensive comparable to one that won multibillion-dollar awards against Big Tobacco.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">The <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Chevron-etc.-9th.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 23px !important;">ruling </a>comes after a three-judge panel took a second look at a jurisdictional dispute between the energy companies and four municipalities after being ordered to do so by the U.S. Supreme Court.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">San Mateo County, Marin County and the cities of Santa Cruz and Imperial Beach in San Diego County <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.courthousenews.com/california-counties-use-big-tobacco-lawsuit-tactics-go-big-oil/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 23px !important;">sued</a> Chevron, BP and three dozen other oil, gas and coal companies in separate state courts in July 2017, claiming the fuel companies created a public nuisance by hiding for nearly 50 years that fossil fuel consumption was heating and damaging the earth.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">After the cases were removed to federal court, the local governments fought to remand them to state court, arguing state law claims of public nuisance should be decided by California’s judicial system.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 28px; clear: both;">The energy giants objected, insisting the claims are governed by federal law because they implicate “uniquely federal interests,” including matters of interstate and international commerce and environmental policy.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">In March 2018, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/chhabria-big-oil-remand-order.pdf" target="blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 23px !important;">remanded</a> the cases to their respective state courts.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">A unanimous three-judge Ninth Circuit panel upheld Chhabria’s ruling two years later, finding the federal court lacks jurisdiction to consider state law claims. Writing for the majority, U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta, a George W. Bush appointee, rejected the oil companies’ argument that because they provided fuel to the U.S. government through service contracts, they were “acting under” a federal officer’s directions.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 28px; clear: both;">The U.S. Supreme Court granted the energy companies’ petition for certiorari and sent the cases back to the Ninth Circuit to reconsider its ruling in light of the high court’s 2021 decision in <span style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">BP p.l.c. v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, where it held that a federal appeals court can review a federal judge’s entire remand order. In that case, the city of Baltimore sued 26 oil companies for creating the greenhouse gases responsible for rising sea levels.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">But Ikuta and her fellow panelists, U.S. Circuit Judges Morgan Christen and Kenneth Lee, declined to change their minds, sticking to the long-standing principle that federal courts should narrowly limit their reach to protect the jurisdiction of state courts.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">“Our adherence to this doctrine does not change merely because plaintiffs raise novel and sweeping causes of action,” she wrote. “We therefore reject the broad interpretations of removal jurisdiction urged on us by the energy companies and affirm the district court’s remand order.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">The panel also rejected the argument that the energy companies’ conduct occurred on federal land and must be governed by federal law. The judges found that while some of the companies operated on federal land, such as the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve run by Chevron predecessor Standard Oil, the companies fail to account for how much of their conduct took place on federal enclaves. “The connection between conduct on federal enclaves and the counties’ alleged injuries is too attenuated and remote to establish that the counties’ cause of action is governed by the federal law applicable to any federal enclave,” Ikuta wrote.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">The companies had also argued that the cases should stay in federal court because a portion of their fossil-fuel extraction took place on the Outer Continental Shelf, which falls under federal jurisdiction. “We reject this argument, because the connection between such conduct and the injuries alleged by the plaintiffs here is too attenuated to give rise to jurisdiction,” Ikuta wrote, reasoning that the counties’ lawsuit claim only local injuries, and focus on the companies’ “concerted campaign” to hide the harmful effects of fossil fuels from the public. “These allegations do not refer to actions taken on the Outer Continental Shelf,” she wrote.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">The cities and counties praised the opinion as “clear and reasoned” in a statement.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 28px; clear: both;">“We appreciate the panel’s thorough review of this matter and are eager to return to the state courts where we filed our cases more than four years ago,” the plaintiffs said an email sent through the law firm Sher Edling LLP. “It is time to go to trial to hold these defendants accountable for deceiving consumers about the dangers associated with the use of their products, and to protect our taxpayers from having to bear the enormous costs resulting from that deception.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 28px; clear: both;">The <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.courthousenews.com/cities-get-second-chance-to-hold-big-oil-liable-for-climate-change/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 23px !important;">same Ninth Circuit panel found</a> U.S. District Judge William Alsup lacked jurisdiction when he <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-kills-cities-climate-change-suits/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 23px !important;">dismissed</a> similar lawsuits brought by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland. The judges remanded the cases to Alsup so he can reconsider if alternative grounds justify keeping the two lawsuits in federal court, though their ruling Tuesday means those cases will likely end up in state court as well.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 28px; clear: both;">In an email, BP head of corporate communications Megan Baldino said the company could not speak about pending litigation. Chevron spokesman Braden Reddall said in an email that the company “respectfully disagrees” with the panel’s decision.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: 28px; clear: both;">“Plaintiffs’ claims are based on allegations about worldwide carbon emissions and address global climate change — national and international issues that can be governed only by federal, not state, law. The court acknowledges that cases such as this one “raise novel and sweeping causes of action,'” Reddall said, noting that like Alsup, the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.courthousenews.com/climate-change-suit-against-big-oil-nixed-as-too-ambitious/" target="blank" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 23px !important;">Second Circuit</a> had dismissed nearly identical claims as “sprawling” and overly ambitious. “Although the court has decided that plaintiffs’ claims for now can proceed past this preliminary stage, Chevron looks forward to additional challenges that should put an early end to this meritless lawsuit.”=</div><div>chevron takes lead in defense (city/state level lawsuits for damage agw) b/c exxon and others KNEW; using 1st amend defense cf drilled season 2==new 220
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-your-city-making-you-fat-how-urban-planning-can-address-the-obesity-epidemic-130858">https://theconversation.com/is-your-city-making-you-fat-how-urban-planning-can-address-the-obesity-epidemic-130858</a></div><div><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/02/climate-misinformation-researchers-california-communities-suing-fossil-fuels" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/02/02/climate-misinformation-researchers-california-communities-suing-fossil-fuels</a>Just in case fossil fuel companies had forgotten when and how much they knew about the impacts their products have had on the climate, a reminder came at them in court this week.On January 29, six researchers studying climate misinformation filed <a href="http://climatecasechart.com/case/county-san-mateo-v-chevron-corp/?cn-reloaded=1" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">one of eight friend-of-the-court briefs</a> in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals supporting the California communities suing fossil fuel companies for climate damages.The dozens of companies, which include a variety of oil, gas, and coal producers and refiners, such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Peabody, <a href="https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/01/31/california-climate-suits-state-court/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">are trying to get the cases moved</a> from state to federal court, where similar climate liability lawsuits from San Francisco, Oakland, and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/07/20/big-apple-loses-big-oil-judge-dismisses-climate-liability-suit" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">New York City have not fared so well</a>. The Court of Appeals is lumping together six suits from California counties and cities while deciding where they should be tried.<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/18/climate-advocates-underestimate-power-fossil-fuel-misinformation-campaign-brulle" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Some of the top academics</a> examining fossil fuel companies’ actions and communications around climate change were involved in filing <a href="http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2019/20190129_docket-18-15499-18-15502-18-15503_amicus-brief-8.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">the brief</a>, which rather concisely summarizes the major take-aways from their research in its table of contents.To sum up even more, fossil fuel companies:<ul style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1.5em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px;"><li>knew the risks of burning their products on the climate.</li><li>worked proactively to cover up that knowledge and discredit climate science.</li><li>tried to protect their own assets from climate impacts by using the very same science they sought to undermine in public.</li></ul>The researchers filing the brief include <a href="https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/people/naomi-oreskes" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Naomi Oreskes</a> (co-author of <a href="https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Merchants of Doubt</a>) and <a href="https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/people/geoffrey-supran" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Geoffrey Supran</a> of Harvard University, <a href="https://www.brown.edu/academics/institute-environment-society/people/details/robert-brulle" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Robert Brulle</a> of Brown University, <a href="https://environment.yale.edu/profile/farrell/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Justin Farrell</a> of Yale University, <a href="https://vpge.stanford.edu/people/benjamin-franta" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Benjamin Franta</a> of Stanford University, and <a href="http://www.bris.ac.uk/expsych/people/stephan-lewandowsky/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Stephan Lewandowsky</a> of the University of Bristol, UK. They’re joined in this brief by the <a href="http://www.igsd.org/initiatives/the-center-for-climate-integrity/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Center for Climate Integrity</a>, an initiative that provides legal, scientific, and policy support for affected communities seeking climate damages from polluters.The other seven supporting briefs filed the same day came from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat from Rhode Island and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/30/sheldon-whitehouse-just-delivered-his-150th-speech-climate-action-senate" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">vocal climate champion</a>), climate and consumer advocacy nonprofits, climate scientists and scholars, states, and government groups. [vid]Harvard historian of science Naomi Oreskes at a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/12/13/hundreds-scientists-and-supporters-gather-rally-against-attacks-science" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">December 2016 rally calling on scientists to stand up for science</a>.]pixThe reason social scientists and science historians decided to get involved in this legal battle, they write, is because these lawsuits in California center around the fact that the fossil fuel companies “affirmatively and knowingly concealed the hazards that they knew would result from the normal use of their fossil fuel products through misrepresentation about those products and deliberately discrediting scientific information related to climate change.”In order to make things easy for the courts, these researchers created what is basically a highlight reel of these industry misrepresentations and disinformation campaigns in their 55-page brief.It draws from fossil fuel industry records, such as the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/11/20/american-petroleum-institute-1965-speech-climate-change-oil-gas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">1965 speech by the American Petroleum Institute CEO</a> on the “catastrophic consequence” of carbon pollution....</div><div><div>=</div><div>geo priviliedge</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/its-easy-for-liberals-to-feel-contempt-for-red-states-but-they-should-remember-this-basic-fact/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/its-easy-for-liberals-to-feel-contempt-for-red-states-but-they-should-remember-this-basic-fact/</a></div><div>
</div><div>...Like a lot of people in my generation, I have issues with the use of the word “privilege” in some of these contexts—among other things, it implies that a freedom as basic as not getting harassed by police is a kind of special perk rather than a fundamental right. But the basic point is correct, and essential: many of us, especially we white men, go about our daily lives blissfully unaware of the benefits we enjoy—McIntosh calls them “unearned advantages”—from not being the victims of oppression. </div><div class="p2_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">In fact, I’d like to extend McIntosh’s concept to another form of unearned advantage: the economic opportunities enjoyed by residents of a handful of the nation’s largest and wealthiest coastal metropolitan areas. Cities like San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C., and their suburbs, have raced ahead of most of the rest of the country in recent decades. But the well-educated liberals who most benefit from all this economic growth—the same people who are most likely to be woke to privilege in other contexts—don’t seem to recognize that a substantial portion of the gains are unearned, ill-gotten, and coming at someone else’s expense. <div class="p3_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Put simply, these big liberal metro areas aren’t thriving simply because they’re liberal, or educated, or “innovative”; they’re doing so in large part thanks to federal policies that allow them to suck up more than their fair share of the nation’s wealth. Since 1980, the gap between the per capita income in the wealthiest 10 percent of metro areas and the poorest 10 percent has <a title="grown" href="https://twitter.com/JedKolko/status/771329129417363456" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">grown</a> by 21 percent. The contrast with rural America is even starker. As recently as twenty years ago, sparsely populated counties were doing fine; in fact, during the first four years of the 1990s boom, their rates of business start-ups and employment growth exceeded those of the big cities. But their economies collapsed during the 2008 recession and have not recovered, even as the largest metro areas have <a title="flourished" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/14/opinion/rural-america-trump-decline.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage" target="blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">flourished</a>. <div class="p4_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">These growing geographic disparities ought to alarm everyone—especially those who claim to care about inequality. But instead of concern, what you too often hear from coastal liberals is smug satisfaction that they are the forward-thinking economic drivers of the national economy and that they disproportionately pay the nation’s taxes. Writing in the New Republic in 2017, contributing editor Kevin Baker <a title="took" href="https://newrepublic.com/article/140948/bluexit-blue-states-exit-trump-red-america" target="_blank" rel="external nofollow noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">took</a> this triumphalism a step further by proposing, tongue only partially in cheek, that wealthy blue states (or, as he dubbed them, “the United States of We Pay Our Own Damn Way”) should virtually secede from the union....<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div>

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/12/exxon-pushes-back-oil-giant-seeks-to-depose-santa-cruz-city-county-officials/

In December, the city and county of Santa Cruz joined a wave of

coastal California communities suing fossil-fuel companies for

climate-change related damages. On Monday, ExxonMobil pushed back

against what it called “abusive law enforcement tactics and litigation,”

threatening to file its own legal action and accusing the local

jurisdictions of hypocritically omitting reference to climate change

damages from their own bond disclosures.

“The stark and irreconcilable conflict between what these municipal

governments alleged in their respective complaints and what they

disclosed to investors in their bond offerings indicates that the

allegations in the complaints are not honestly held and were not made in

good faith,” reads the 60-page motion, which was filed Monday in a

Texas court.

Officials named by Exxon include Santa Cruz City Manager Martín

Bernal, City Attorney Anthony P. Condotti, Santa Cruz County Chief

Administrative Officer Carlos Palacios and County Counsel Dana McRae.

Exxon is seeking to depose — interview under oath — each official to

investigate a potential lawsuit, taking advantage of a uniquely flexible

Texan rule that allows pre-lawsuit depositions in certain cases.

Officials from San Francisco, Oakland, San Mateo County, Marin and

Imperial Beach are also named.

Condotti called the move by Exxon “a sham” and “obviously a pretext for harassment.”

“The notion that the city provided some misleading information in its

bond disclosures is preposterous,” Condotti told the Sentinel.

Exxon’s filing details a number of claims made in the respective

complaints filed in Santa Cruz County Superior Court on Dec. 20. Among

them are the county’s claim of a 98 percent likelihood of a three-foot

flood by 2050, and its estimate that $742 million in property is at risk

due to climate-change related storms, fires and floods.

“None of these dire and specific warnings of climate change-induced

sea level rise or wildfires appear in the disclosures provided to

investors in Santa Cruz City and County bond offerings,” Exxon’s

attorneys wrote, referencing recent bond disclosures filed by each

jurisdiction in 2016 and 2017, which detail relevant financial

information and how the bonds will be repaid. “Indeed, their disclosures

lack any express reference to climate change, global warming, or

changes in Santa Cruz’s hydrologic regime.”City Manager Martín Bernal said that such information was not

included in the bond documents because they include only a near-future

snapshot of risks. He said he has not seen climate-change related

estimates on any such disclosures. If those projections were of interest

to investors, he said, the information is readily available on the city

website.<div id="div-gpt-ad-Cube_Article" class="dfp-ad dfp-Cube_Article" data-ad-unit="Cube_Article">

     
    </div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">

“The idea that somehow we’re conspiring or hiding just doesn’t make sense,” Bernal said.

Daniel Farber, who co-directs the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy

and the Environment, said in an email that he hadn’t reviewed the filing

in detail but that at first blush it didn’t appear as if Exxon had a

strong case.

Condotti said that while he believes Exxon’s claims are without

merit, he is not surprised by the development. “We’re filing this

lawsuit against 29 major international corporations,” he said. “The fact

that they would try to bring counter-actions or take other procedural

maneuvers is certainly something that we contemplated.”

The city’s ongoing lawsuit against the companies will be unaffected, he said. No date has been set for a hearing in that case.

On Tuesday, New York City joined the legal fray by filing its own

climate-change related lawsuit against Exxon, BP, Chevron,

Conoco-Phillips and Royal Dutch Shell
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">san bernadino bankrupt, also other challenges</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2015/12/17/how_flint_michigan_saved_money_and">http://www.democracynow.org/2015/12/17/how_flint_michigan_saved_money_and</a>http://www.alternet.org/magical-mystery-tour-american-austerity-how-one-state-destroying-democracy-and-poisoning-its-peopleSomething is rotten in the state of Michigan.One city neglected to inform its residents that its water supply was laced with cancerous chemicals. Another dissolved its public school district and replaced it with a charter school system, only to witness the for-profit management company it hired flee the scene after determining it couldn’t turn a profit. Numerous cities and school districts in the state are now run by single, state-appointed technocrats, as permitted under an emergency financial manager law pushed through by Rick Snyder, Michigan’s austerity-promoting governor. This legislation not only strips residents of their local voting rights, but gives Snyder’s appointee the power to do just about anything, including dissolving the city itself -- all (no matter how disastrous) in the name of “fiscal responsibility.”If you’re thinking, "Who cares?" since what happens in Michigan stays in Michigan, think again. The state’s aggressive balance-the-books style of governance has already spread beyond its borders. In January, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie appointed bankruptcy lawyer and former Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr to be a “legal adviser” to Atlantic City.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=Lauren Kuby, Councilmember from the City of Tempe, ArizonaMuch like plastic debris makes its way into the innocent stomachs of our wildlife, I recently found myself in the belly of the proverbial beast—the<a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;"> American Legislative Exchange Council </a>(ALEC). ALEC held its annual meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, the first week in December. And, as a recently elected Councilmember from Tempe, Arizona, I attended on my own dime.In a new twist of the ALEC playbook, policymakers and lobbyists have formed a mini-ALEC called "ACCE," the <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/meet-alecs-little-brother-acce/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">American </a><a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/meet-alecs-little-brother-acce/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">City and County</a><a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/meet-alecs-little-brother-acce/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;"> Exchange</a>. Its director, John Russell, has proclaimed that ACCE will do for cities what ALEC has done for states—which he described as serving as a "nonpartisan free market forum" for local elected officials to learn from "industry experts and policy analysts." Translation: while Congress is gridlocked, cities are driving progressive change, so let's use our fossil-fueled cash to put an end to such change.The ACCE meeting was tiny (25 participants) compared to its behemoth brother (nearly 700 attendees) and—surprise—diversity was lacking. Three women and no minorities in the group of 25 mostly older city and county officials.I had run for Tempe City Council as a sustainability champion, eager to make a difference in my community. Early in my term, I gained Council approval to study the efficacy of a single-use plastic bag ban (PBB) for our university town. The State of Arizona glanced at our meeting agenda and banned bag bans outright, choking back hypocrisy as they claimed that the State trumps local decision-making on waste management and recycling.Not happy about state interference in local concerns, I signed on as plaintiff in a <a href="http://aclpi.org/case/kuby-v-arizona" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 1.6em;">lawsuit</a> brought by attorney Tim Hogan of the <a href="http://aclpi.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest</a>. Our case argues that the ban on bag bans takes away local control and thus violates the home-rule provision of the Arizona Constitution.I was curious to tiptoe into the den of corporate influence and quietly observe the right-wing's righteous anger towards cities who were innovating and saving taxpayer money.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">ALEC/ACCE Pay-to-Play Example: the Plastic Bag Industry</h2>First up, <a href="http://www.spcadvance.com/speaker/philip-r-rozenski-mba/" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Philip Rozenski</a>, director of "sustainability" and marketing for Novolex, the leading manufacturer of grocery bags that went by the name of Helix Poly until recently.Arguably the most-traveled plastic-bag advocate in the country, Rozenski lives to deride advocates who are taking local action against the environmental, social, and economic impacts of plastic pollution to our waterways, public health, and supply chain.Rozenski washed the room green with his claim that Novolex bags are good for the environment, as they use 30% recycled content. He failed to mention that, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, only 13% of plastic bags are recycled properly and that bags improperly recycled pollute marine environments, clog recycling sorters, litter roadways, and saddle cities with cleanup costs.Another elephant in the room? Novolex was the single largest contributor to a campaign sponsored by the "American Progressive Bag Alliance"—the trade group for plastic bag manufacturers—to sidetrack California's Plastic Bag Ban. The Alliance spent over $3.2 million to repeal California's recently enacted law.Rozenski warned the room's elected officials of the growing trend of city PBBs, which he described as "feel-good legislation" that serves as "stepping stones to the regulation of all packaging." He argued that, just as environmentalists play on emotion with visuals of bags littering the landscape, his alliance should likewise dramatize the "dangers of E. coli contamination" in reusable bags to win over the public. (Never mind that the study he references found that 99.99% of said bacteria is eliminated simply upon washing reusable bags.) With scant evidence, he also claimed that 5–10% of consumers living in cities with bag bans "flee" their cities' grocery stores to shop elsewhere.<div id="block-inject-1" class="block-inject block-inject-1" style="line-height: 24px;"><div id="block-block-40" class="block block-block first odd" style="margin-bottom: 1.5em;"><div class="adv">
</div></div></div><div class="clearfix" style="line-height: 24px;">He also was hoisted with his own petard when he argued that bag bans increase a retailer's costs. In reality, a five-fold cost increase for a grocer—from a penny per plastic bag to a nickel per paper bag—actually equates to a six-cent profit given that grocers can charge 10 cents for a paper bag should a consumer forget their reusable bag. Under this business-friendly equation, a penny saved from not buying plastic and a nickel earned from charging for paper equals a six-cent profit!Under Rozenski's conjuring, cities considering PBBs go to untold lengths to avoid public discussion and offer only a three-day notice for the vote. In another of Rozenski's imagined scenarios, PBB advocates employ "crowd shaming" tactics to twist the arms of councilmembers to force their pro-bag-ban vote. I'm not sure what universe he comes from (where do paid shills originate?) but, in my city of Tempe, staff, business associations, and the public vet every policy proposal thoroughly—a sometimes a long and difficult process.<h2 style="line-height: 2em; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Fracking: "Preemption" or Bust</h2>The next topic at ACCE's "Trending Regulations in Local Government Hurting Economic Growth" session was the supposed "epidemic" of "draconian" local restrictions against fracking.The presenter <a href="http://www.ncpa.org/about/jacki-pick" target="blank" style="text-decoration: none;">Jacki Pick</a> is the Vice-President of an operation called the "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Center_for_Policy_Analysis" target="_blank" style="text-decoration: none;">National Center for Policy Analysis</a>," another "free-market" think tank funded by foundations established by right-wing business families and billionaires including—you guessed it—the Koch brothers. She is also a talk show host from Glen Beck's The Blaze Radio Network.She offered up the case study of a fracking ban passed deep in the heart of Texas and compared the process to a "frog gradually boiling in the pot and not realizing what is going on."She claimed that in Denton, Texas, like other cities, activists come to town and "attach" themselves to a professor who, in turn, pressures "unemployed college kids with lots of time on their hands" to take on the fracking fight. She suggested that professors were violating the law and that the process "needs to be shut down." She decried the influence of the 6,000 college kids who voted for the fracking ban: "They don't live there, don't pay taxes there. Yet they're deciding these issues."I barely restrained myself from jumping to the microphone and educating the slack-jawed audience that: 1) the college kids I mentor hold multiple jobs to afford the high cost of tuition; 2) the U.S. Census counts college students where they attend school, not where their parents live, and democracy allows American adults to vote where they live; and 3) the Denton Fracking Ban passed by an overwhelming margin. The students' votes were merely the frosting on the cake.This Cassandra of the Right continued to warn that "the oil and gas industry will be destroyed unless conservatives act." She complained that anti-fracking activists were turning conservatives' talking points—such as those that argue for decentralizing power and local rule—against them: "Get out in front of these activists who are ginning up discontent. That is how they make money...science is on our side."While municipal plastic bag and fracking bans are on the rise, so is state interference with our local decision-making and corporate worries over the impacts of local action.After three hours in the belly of the ALEC/ACCE beast, I felt sullied by their deceitful claims and defeated.What could be a better antidote than a meeting of councilmembers on the front line of the preemption fight?I boarded a plane to Washington, DC, to cleanse my spirit and refresh my belief that local actions make a difference and that the progress of cities is unstoppable--despite the efforts of ALEC and ACCE.- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/12/12998/alec-and-acce-pay-play-meeting-belly-beast-scottsdale#sthash.JGxKMwtV.dpufhttp://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/12/12998/alec-and-acce-pay-play-meeting-belly-beast-scottsdale </div><div style="">=</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>