Fed Agencies Settle Global Warming Lawsuit To Tune Of $500M

February 10, 2009

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San Francisco’s federal court recently settled a lawsuit in which environmental groups and four U.S. cities accused two govt. agencies, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the country’s official export-credit agency, and the Overseas Private Investment Corp., of financing energy projects overseas without considering impacts on global warming, Santa Monica Daily Press reports.

Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Boulder, Colorado. and the California cities of Arcata, Oakland and Santa Monica, filed the lawsuit in 2002, claiming that “the two agencies provided more than $32 billion in financing and loan guarantees for fossil fuel projects over 10 years without studying their impact on global warming or the environment as required by the National Environmental Policy Act,” FoxReno.com reports. The cities claimed they would feel the environmental impacts of overseas projects.

The two agencies have agreed to provide a combined $500 million in financing for renewable energy projects and take into account GHG emissions associated with projects each company supports.

Under the settlement, Ex-Im agreed to develop a greenhouse gas policy and start considering CO2 emissions when evaluating fossil fuel projects for investment.

OPIC agreed to reduce the GHG emissions associated with projects it supports by 20 percent over the next 10 years.

Last year, under settlement with New York’s Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, Dynegy Inc. and Xcel Energy Inc. agreed to disclose their financial risks associated with climate change to the S.E.C.

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Reader Comments

what you see here is one of the first pitance monetary
liabilites of emissions. this is why vp chaney for many years altered,deleted,deacted many of the climate research findings..to help facilitate the fossil fuels indusrty.this half billion finding is a pitance as this global warming market is worth trillions of dollars. this figure will continue to increase and we all have an ongoing monetary figure for the monetary cost of vp chaneys actions which can be dated back to the exact day of chaneys actions documented on film…

domainguy | February 11th, 2009

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