The proposed legislation establishes a new chapter in the General Laws titled "Climate Disaster Actions," aimed at addressing climate-attributable harm in Rhode Island. It creates a legal cause of action for individuals, businesses, nonprofit organizations, municipalities, and other political subdivisions that suffer climate-attributable harm due to climate disasters caused by responsible parties.

The bill defines "responsible parties" as any corporation, company, partnership, association, or other entity that has extracted, produced, refined, marketed, or sold fossil fuel products and has engaged in misleading, deceptive, or false statements regarding the climate impacts of those products. It imposes strict liability on these responsible parties for any climate-attributable harm they cause, provided that the plaintiff can establish that the responsible party's conduct was a substantial contributing factor to the harm.

The legislation also allows insurers that have paid claims or incurred increased costs due to climate-attributable harm to bring direct civil actions against responsible parties to recover paid claims, increased reinsurance or capital costs, and costs associated with market destabilization. Insurers are granted subrogation rights against responsible parties for climate-attributable harms, and prior to initiating large-scale subrogation litigation, the insurance commissioner must conduct an independent assessment to evaluate the expected benefits versus anticipated costs and risks.

Furthermore, any recovery obtained by insurers through judgment, settlement, or subrogation must be considered in property and casualty rate filings to offset losses or reduce future rate increases. The bill includes provisions to ensure that recoveries are equitably credited to policyholders and do not result in duplicative or excessive rates.

The act also clarifies that it does not preempt or limit enforcement actions by the attorney general, claims brought under consumer protection, environmental, or common law, or the authority of the insurance commissioner under existing law. It includes a severability clause to ensure that if any provision is held invalid, the remainder of the chapter remains effective. The act will take effect upon passage.