Provides that parties that have caused a certain amount of greenhouse gas emissions are strictly liable to harmed parties for damages incurred as a result of extreme weather attributable to climate change or a climate disaster.

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83rd OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2025 Regular Session
Senate Bill 679
Sponsored by Senator GOLDEN (Presession filed.)
SUMMARY
The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject
to consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor’s brief statement of the essential features of the
measure as introduced. The statement includes a measure digest written in compliance with applicable readability
standards.
Digest: The Act says that parties that made greenhouse gas are strictly liable for damages due
to climate change. (Flesch Readability Score: 66.3).
Provides that parties that have caused a certain amount of greenhouse gas emissions are strictly
liable to harmed parties for damages incurred as a result of extreme weather attributable to climate
change or a climate disaster.
Declares an emergency, effective on passage.
A BILL FOR AN ACT
Relating to harms associated with climate change; and declaring an emergency.
Whereas all Oregonians are at risk of concrete and particularized injuries caused by the in-
creasing prevalence and intensity of climate disasters and extreme weather attributable to climate
change; and
Whereas Oregon has a compelling state interest in protecting its citizens from harms resulting
from climate disasters and extreme weather attributable to climate change; and
Whereas the cost and impact of climate disaster and extreme weather attributable to climate
change continues to increase, straining public resources in this state; and
Whereas impacts in Oregon causally connected to responsible parties’ qualified products and
actions since 1965 include, but are not limited to, damage to public property and infrastructure, as
well as adjacent private property and infrastructure, natural resource damages to public and private
resources, increased risk, hours and compensation to emergency responders faced with increasingly
frequent and severe events, significant and costly health and safety upgrades to public buildings
prior to generally accepted amortization and depreciation timelines, resulting in additional taxpayer
expenses now and into the future, significant and costly occupational productivity losses and costs
from workplace health and safety regulations that are increasingly necessary and required to pro-
tect employers and employees from increased risks and hazards related to climate change and ex-
treme weather attributable to climate change, canceled school days due to climate disasters and
extreme weather attributable to climate change, resulting in educational harms to students that
have long-lasting impacts on workforce, business and economic development and increasing public
and private health costs stemming from indoor and outdoor pollution, contamination and exposure
to toxic materials, whether in combination or occurring separately, exacerbated by the impacts of
climate disasters and extreme weather attributable to climate change; and
Whereas decades of intentional lies, misinformation or disinformation and misrepresentations by
responsible parties about the connection between qualified products and climate change has directly
and causally contributed to concrete and particularized injuries in this state from climate disasters
and extreme weather attributable to climate change; and
NOTE:Matter in boldfaced type in an amended section is new; matter [ italic and bracketed] is existing law to be omitted.
New sections are in boldfaced type.
LC 1535
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Whereas continued lies, misinformation or disinformation and misrepresentations pose a threat
to the health, safety and security of all residents of, and visitors to, this state; and
Whereas responsible parties have long known the dangers of their qualified products but con-
tinued to deny and lie for profit; and
Whereas hiding, obfuscating and denying information to consumers, elected officials and regu-
lators harmed and continues to harm Oregonians; and
Whereas this state has a compelling interest in protecting consumers from lies, misinformation
and disinformation in the marketplace and in encouraging factual and truthful information on cli-
mate disasters, extreme weather attributable to climate change and the qualified products and
actions of responsible parties; and
Whereas responsible parties have engaged in a decades-long project to protect their bottom lines
with a coordinated effort to deceive the public about the reality of the climate crisis; and
Whereas documents unveiled by litigation and investigative journalists demonstrate that as
early as the 1950s, responsible parties became aware of the potentially catastrophic impact of their
products; and
Whereas even in the face of research conducted by their own scientists affirming the impacts
of their business, responsible parties outright denied that climate change was real, spread disinfor-
mation to cast doubt on the science and fought regulatory action against qualified products; and
Whereas the 1970s and 1980s saw the development of a clear scientific consensus that increasing
carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would contribute to global warming and that the
heightened carbon dioxide emissions were attributable to fossil fuels; and
Whereas these facts were supported by fossil-fuel industry scientists like Exxon’s James F.
Black, who provided these findings in a 1977 presentation and a 1978 briefing of Exxon management;
and
Whereas in 1979, W. L. Ferrall outlined that an internal Exxon study concluded that the “pres-
ent trend of fossil fuel consumption will cause dramatic environmental effects before the year
2050”; and
Whereas in 1982, R. W. Cohen summarized that Exxon’s climate modeling research was “con-
sistent with the published prediction of more complex climate models” and “in accord with the sci-
entific consensus on the effect of increased atmospheric CO2 on climate”; and
Whereas a 1988 Shell report that echoed the Exxon warnings and acknowledged the need to
consider policy changes provided that “the potential implications for the world are . . . so large that
policy options need to be considered much earlier” and that research should be “directed more to
the analysis of policy and energy options than to studies of what we will be facing exactly”; and
Whereas despite acknowledging that increased carbon dioxide concentrations due to fossil fuel
combustion posed a considerable threat, responsible parties decided not to take steps to prevent the
risks of climate change; and
Whereas instead, they stopped funding major climate research and launched campaigns to dis-
credit climate science and delay actions perceived as contrary to their business interests; and
Whereas these corporations carried out these campaigns by developing public relations strate-
gies that were contradictory to their knowledge and scientific insights, engaging in public commu-
nications campaigns to promote doubt and downplay the threats of climate change, and funding
individuals, organizations and research aimed at discrediting the growing body of publicly available
climate science; and
Whereas from 1970 to 2020 the oil and gas industry made nearly $2.8 billion a day and $1 trillion
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a year in profit; and
Whereas responsible parties currently advertise “green” efforts to the public that mask the lack
of real investment in resiliency and energy-source transition and the continued prioritization of the
extraction, refinement and distribution of qualified products; and
Whereas a December 2022 report by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability in
Congress also revealed internal documents from senior leaders in responsible parties that explicitly
reject taking accountability for the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their products; and
Whereas by conduct and impact, responsible parties have intentionally obfuscated the truth
about climate change and outright deceived the public in order to continue dependence on their
qualified products; and
Whereas intentional lies, misinformation, disinformation and misrepresentations by responsible
parties about the connection between qualified products they sell or sold and climate change is not
political speech, but fundamentally commercial activity with incidental political impact; now, there-
fore,
Be It Enacted by the People of the State of Oregon:
SECTION 1.
As used in sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act:
(1) “Climate disaster” means an event that meets any of the following threshold quali-
fications and is determined by impact attribution science or extreme event attribution sci-
ence to be worsened to a statistically significant degree or caused by climate change from
responsible parties’ products, or is extreme weather attributable to climate change from re-
sponsible parties’ products:
(a) Any natural catastrophe, including any hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, wind-
driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide,
snowstorm or drought, or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood or explosion, which in the de-
termination of the President of the United States causes damage of sufficient severity and
magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under federal law to supplement the efforts
and available resources of states, local governments and disaster relief organizations in al-
leviating the damage, loss, hardship or suffering caused thereby.
(b) Any natural or man-made incident that results in extraordinary levels of mass casu-
alties, damage or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment,
economy, national morale or government functions, including an event that results in sus-
tained impacts over a prolonged period of time, almost immediately exceeds resources
normally available to local, state, tribal and private sector authorities in the impacted area
and significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an ex-
tent that national security could be threatened.
(c) An event that qualifies or would have qualified for inclusion on the National Centers
for Environmental Information’s Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters program and
data list as it existed on July 30, 2024, without recognition of any changes weakening the
agency program that may occur at a later time by subsequent agency administration or
abolition of the program, the National Centers for Environmental Information or the Na-
tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
(d) An event that results in a declaration of emergency under ORS 401.165.
(2) “Extreme event attribution science” means research aimed at understanding how
human-induced changes in the global climate system affect the probability, severity and
other characteristics of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and heat waves, includ-
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ing but not limited to a determination of the likelihood of the particular event happening
today compared to how it might have unfolded without human-caused increase in concen-
tration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
(3) “Extreme weather attributable to climate change” means weather, climate or envi-
ronmental conditions, including but not limited to temperature, precipitation, drought or
flooding, that rank above a threshold value near the upper or lower ends of the range of
historical measurements for a particular place and time of year, with unusual characteristics
in terms of magnitude, location, timing or extent, and including events that extreme event
attribution science determines would not have been possible without the influence of climate
change.
(4)(a) “Harmed party” means a person who incurs damages as a result of a climate dis-
aster or extreme weather attributable to climate change.
(b) “Harmed party” does not include a public body.
(5) “Impact attribution science” means research aimed at understanding how global cli-
mate change affects human and natural systems, including localized physical impacts, such
as floods, droughts and sea level rise, and the corresponding effects on infrastructure, public
health, ecosystems, agriculture and economies.
(6) “Public body” has the meaning given that term in ORS 174.109.
(7) “Qualified product” means a fossil fuel product including, but not limited to:
(a) Crude petroleum oil and all other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, that are
produced at the wellhead in liquid form by ordinary production methods.
(b) Natural, manufactured, mixed and byproduct hydrocarbon gas.
(c) Refined crude oil, crude tops, topped crude, processed crude, processed crude petro-
leum, residue from crude petroleum, cracking stock, uncracked fuel oil, fuel oil, treated
crude oil, residuum, gas oil, casinghead gasoline, natural-gas gasoline, kerosene, benzine,
wash oil, waste oil, blended gasoline, lubricating oil and blends or mixtures of oil with one
or more liquid products or byproducts derived from oil or gas.
(8)(a) “Responsible party” means a firm, corporation, company, partnership, society, joint
stock company or any other entity or association that:
(A) Since January 1, 1965:
(i) Has emitted total greenhouse gas emissions of at least one billion metric tons of car-
bon dioxide equivalent; or
(ii) Has caused to be emitted, through the extracting, storing, transporting, refining,
importing, exporting, producing, manufacturing, distributing, compounding, marketing or
offering for wholesale or retail sale of a qualified product, total greenhouse gas emissions
of at least one billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent; and
(B) At any time on or after January 1, 1965:
(i) Did business in this state;
(ii) Was registered to do business in this state;
(iii) Acted as an agent of this state; or
(iv) Otherwise had sufficient contacts with this state to allow the responsible party to
be subject to personal jurisdiction in this state.
(b) “Responsible party” does not include a public body.
SECTION 2.
The Legislative Assembly finds and declares that:
(1) Decades of intentional lies, misinformation or disinformation and misrepresentations
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by responsible parties about the connection between qualified products and climate change
has directly and causally contributed to concrete and particularized injuries in this state
from climate disasters and extreme weather attributable to climate change.
(2) A judicial forum is necessary for Oregonians to redress the harm that responsible
parties have caused and continue to cause through climate disasters and extreme weather
attributable to climate change fueled by their products and actions. This state has a com-
pelling state interest in empowering citizens to recover, recoup or rebuild the value of lost,
damaged and destroyed property, as well as the full extent of economic and noneconomic
damages allowable under this state’s laws and the Oregon Constitution.
(3) The courts of this state are the appropriate venue to provide additional relief to
plaintiffs as deemed necessary or proper in the course of legal proceedings brought under the
authority of sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act.
(4) This state has a compelling interest in preserving public resources for traditional
public purposes, and this state should not continue paying for increased damages to harmed
parties caused by the profit-seeking acts and omissions of responsible parties.
(5) Climate disasters and extreme weather attributable to climate change by impact at-
tribution science and extreme weather attribution science should not be deemed acts of God,
unforeseeable or otherwise classified as a force majeure event eligible for litigation limita-
tions or defenses, except as explicitly and unambiguously provided.
(6) It is the intent of this state to provide a judicial forum for the efficient, just and eq-
uitable resolution of harmed parties’ claims for damages stemming from climate disasters
and extreme weather attributable to climate change against responsible parties.
(7) Responsible parties must be accountable to harmed parties.
(8) The state has a sovereign and compelling state interest in providing a forum for in-
dividuals, businesses and associations sustaining injuries and harms caused by responsible
parties’ deceptive behavior and linked to the harms of responsible parties’ qualified products
and actions.
SECTION 3.
(1) A harmed party or a group of harmed parties that has incurred a total
amount of damages of at least $10,000 as a result of extreme weather attributable to climate
change or a climate disaster may bring an action to recover damages under this section.
(2) All responsible parties are strictly liable, jointly and severally, for damages incurred
by a harmed party or group of harmed parties entitled to bring an action under this section.
(3) Except as provided in subsection (4) of this section, a harmed party that prevails in
an action under this section is entitled to recover:
(a) Economic and noneconomic damages, as defined in ORS 31.705. The amount of eco-
nomic damages to which a harmed party is entitled under this section includes the fair
market value of recovering, recouping, rebuilding or remediating the value of lost, damaged
and destroyed property.
(b) Reasonable attorney fees and costs.
(4) The damages to which a harmed party is entitled under subsection (3) of this section
shall be offset by:
(a) Any amounts paid by a public body to compensate the harmed party for the damages
claimed in the action under this section.
(b) Any amounts paid to a harmed party pursuant to a contract of insurance.
(5) An insurer may bring a subrogation action against responsible parties for recovery
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of payments made to harmed parties under a contract of insurance regardless of whether the
insured has been made whole.
(6) The court may not award attorney fees to a prevailing responsible party in an action
under this section unless the court finds that an objectively reasonable basis for bringing the
action did not exist.
(7) A harmed party may bring an action under this section in:
(a) The county in which all or a substantial part of the events giving rise to the action
occurred;
(b) The county of residence for any one of the natural person responsible parties at the
time the cause of action accrued;
(c) The county of the principal office in this state of any one of the responsible parties
that is not a natural person; or
(d) The county of residence of the harmed party if the harmed party is a natural person
residing in this state.
(8) An action under this section must be commenced by a harmed party no later than
three years from the date the harmed party incurs damages as a result of extreme weather
attributable to climate change or a climate disaster.
(9) The following are affirmative defenses to an action under this section:
(a) That the harmed party intentionally destroyed property or intentionally worsened
damages to reach $10,000 of incurred damages.
(b) That the harmed party’s damages were incurred as a result of the gross negligence
of the harmed party.
(10) The following are not defenses to an action under this section:
(a) A responsible party’s ignorance or mistake of law.
(b) A responsible party’s belief that the requirements of sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act
are unconstitutional or were unconstitutional.
(c) A responsible party’s reliance on any court decision that has been overruled on appeal
or by a subsequent court, even if that court decision had not been overruled when the de-
fendant engaged in conduct that violates sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act.
(d) A responsible party’s reliance on any state or federal court decision that is not
binding on the court in which the action has been brought.
(e) Nonmutual issue preclusion or nonmutual claim preclusion.
(f) Any claim that the enforcement of sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act or the imposition
of civil liability against the responsible party will violate a constitutional right of a third
party.
(g) A responsible party’s assertion that sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act proscribe conduct
that is separately prohibited by any other law of this state.
(h) Any claim that responsible parties’ qualified products were not misused, or were not
intended to be misused, in an unlawful manner.
(i) A responsible party’s assertion that state or federal laws relating to qualified products
and responsible parties’ operations displace, abrogate or supersede the actions authorized
under sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act, the authority of the courts of this state to provide a
forum for the action or the authority of the courts of this state to provide a remedy to
harmed parties.
(j) A responsible party’s assertion that choice-of-law and choice-of-forum clauses govern
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the action, regardless of whether such clauses apply to harmed parties by basis of consumer
transactions.
(k) A responsible party’s assertion that a harmed party assumed a risk of harm through
the use of the responsible party’s products.
(L) A responsible party’s forum non conveniens assertion, so long as the requirements
of subsection (7) of this section are satisfied.
(11) An action under this section is not subject to court-ordered arbitration under ORS
36.400 to 36.425.
(12) A public body may not intervene in an action under this section, but a court may
allow a public body to appear as amicus curiae in an action under this section.
(13) The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall adopt procedural rules for actions un-
der this section that include simplified procedures.
SECTION 4.
Sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act may not be construed to:
(1) Limit the enforceability of any other laws that regulate or prohibit any conduct re-
lating to climate disasters, extreme weather, greenhouse gas emissions or consumer pro-
tection.
(2) Replace legally mandated disaster recovery funds or designated disaster recovery
funds established through legislation, administrative rule or contractually obligated or
court-ordered insurance claim payouts.
(3) Impose liability on any speech, expression or conduct protected by the First Amend-
ment to the United States Constitution, as made applicable to the states through the Four-
teenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, or by the Oregon Constitution.
(4) Wholly or partially repeal, either expressly or by implication, any other statute that
regulates or prohibits conduct relating to climate disaster or extreme weather attributable
to climate change.
SECTION 5. (1) Existing litigation filed in the courts of this state under the statutes of
this state may not be expressly or impliedly preempted, displaced, mooted or dismissed upon
any other prudential consideration arguably arising from sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act.
(2) To the extent that any aspect of existing litigation filed in the courts of this state is
reviewed for the application of sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act, it is severable in each of its
applications to every person and circumstance. If any statute that provides financial benefits
to victims or survivors of climate disasters or extreme weather attributable to climate
change, or results in the collection of damages by the state for damage to consumers and
state interests from climate disasters or extreme weather events, is found by any court to
be unconstitutional, either on its face or as applied, then all applications of that statute that
do not violate the United States Constitution and the Oregon Constitution shall be severed
from the unconstitutional applications and shall remain enforceable, notwithstanding any
other law, and the statute shall be interpreted as if containing language limiting the statute’s
application to the persons, group of persons or circumstances for which the statute’s appli-
cation will not violate the United States Constitution and the Oregon Constitution.
(3) The remedies provided under sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act are in addition to any
other remedy available to a person at common law or under statute. Sections 1 to 5 of this
2025 Act may not be interpreted to prevent a person or the state from pursuing a civil action
or any other remedy available at common law or under statute.
(4) Sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act do not:
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(a) Relieve the liability of a person for damages resulting from climate change, as pro-
vided by law.
(b) Preempt, displace or restrict any rights or remedies of a person, the state, units of
local government or tribal government under law relating to a past, present or future
allegation of:
(A) Deception concerning the effects of fossil fuels on climate change.
(B) Damage or injury resulting from the role of fossil fuels in contributing to climate
change.
(C) Failure to avoid damage or injury related to climate change, including claims for
nuisance, trespass, design defect, negligence, failure to warn or deceptive or unfair practices
and claims for injunctive, declaratory, monetary or other relief.
(5) Sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act do not preempt, supersede or displace any state law
or local ordinance, regulation, policy or program that:
(a) Limits, sets or enforces standards for emissions of greenhouse gases.
(b) Requires monitoring, reporting or keeping records of emissions of greenhouse gases.
(c) Provides for the collection of revenue through fees or impose taxes.
(d) Provides for the performance or support of investigations.
SECTION 6.
Sections 1 to 5 of this 2025 Act apply to causes of action arising on or after
the effective date of this 2025 Act.
SECTION 7. This 2025 Act being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public
peace, health and safety, an emergency is declared to exist, and this 2025 Act takes effect
on its passage.
[8]