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# Full steam ahead: City Hall’s suit to halt global warming alive
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/full-steam-ahead-city-halls-suit-to-halt-global-warming-alive/
- Published: 2005-08-26T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T07:37:21.000Z
- Author: Ryan Hyatt
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Global warming suit still has long way to go*

SAN FRANCISCO — The ability for private citizens to sue organizations for the air pollution they cause overcame a major hurdle on Tuesday, when a judge gave the go ahead for a trial to move forward involving Santa Monica City Hall.

U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White this week ruled that environmental groups and four U.S. cities — including Santa Monica — may sue federal development agencies, alleging the overseas projects they financially support contribute to global warming.

White’s decision is the first to say that groups alleging global warming have a right to sue, said Adam Radinsky, deputy city attorney for Santa Monica, who is involved in the case.

“It’s the first ruling that allows private citizens to sue over the harm caused by independent organizations that contribute to climate change,” Radinsky said. “The suing parties put forward enough evidence to show that emissions from these government agencies will threaten their interests.”

> “It’s the first ruling that allows private citizens to sue over the harm caused by independent organizations that contribute to climate change.” — ADAM RADINSKY Deputy city attorney for Santa Monica

The case is still long from being settled. The next pre-trial hearing will likely be some time next early next year, Radinsky said.

Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the cities of Boulder, Colo., Santa Monica, Oakland and Arcata, Calif., sued Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) and the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im). Those government agencies provide loans and insure billions of dollars of U.S. investors’ money for development projects overseas. The case was originally filed in 2002, with Santa Monica signing on in January of 2004.

Many of the projects are power plants that emit greenhouse gases, which the groups allege cause global warming.

Linda Formella, a spokeswoman with Ex-Im, said the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Calls to OPIC weren’t returned. The suit asserts that OPIC and Ex-Im breached the law when they financed more than $32 billion in projects without assessing their contribution to global warming or impact on the environment as required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Key provisions of NEPA require all federal agencies to conduct an assessment of programs and project-specific decisions that have a significant effect on the human environment.

The projects, which were approved during the past 10 years, include oil fields, pipelines and coal-fired power plants, and account for 32 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, or 8 percent of worldwide GHG emissions annually, environmentalists claim. Projects include many of the largest new oil field developments in South America, Mexico, the Caspian region and Southeast Asia. Companies that have benefited from Ex-Im and OPIC funding include Exxon, Halliburton and Enron.

That output contributes to global warming, officials argue, which threatens to erode Santa Monica’s beaches and bluffs, batter the pier and overwhelm its state-of-the-art drainage system. In the lawsuit, Santa Monica officials demand that fossil fuel projects be studied.

Local officials said the stakes are high in Santa Monica. The health of a $788 million tourist industry that employs more than 11,000 workers and pumps nearly $24 million a year into city coffers is at stake, they argued, adding increased storm activity will not only lead to erosion but require more upkeep, and, in the case of the Palisades Bluffs, endanger motorists and pedestrians.

In 2002, the Environmental Protection Agency released a report on the growing domestic impacts of global warming. According to the report, changes over the next few decades are expected to put southeastern coastal communities at greater risk of storm surges, prompt more severe heat waves, and reduce snowpack and water supplies in the West.

Ex-Im and OPIC claimed that U.S. environmental regulations do not apply to overseas projects, and that the courts have no right to intervene in those agencies’ affairs.

The defendants attempted to show that the cities’ and environmental groups’ arguments were more theoretical than substantive and, therefore, ought to be dismissed. Citing that the developing agencies’ roles were “too limited and attenuated” to demonstrate they were responsible for the emissions, the defendants contended that most of the energy-related projects they backed would have proceeded without their support.

However, Judge White believed allegations that “projects supported by OPIC and Ex-Im are directly or indirectly responsible for approximately 1,911 millions tons of carbon dioxide and methane emissions annually,” was potentially harmful enough to this nation’s citizens that the case ought to be heard in court.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 26, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/082605.pdf?ref=smdp.com)