Nebraska Attorney General sues First Street over climate risk scores

Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers has filed a lawsuit against First Street, a company that provides climate-risk scores for individual properties. The lawsuit alleges that the company uses inaccurate or incomplete data to generate scores for risks such as flood, fire, wind, air, and heat, which has subsequently depressed the Nebraska real estate market.

According to the legal filing, First Street’s scores are often presented as hard facts on major real estate platforms like Zillow, despite being potentially different from federal government data. The suit claims the company fails to account for specific homeowner investments, such as flood protection measures, and withholds its underlying data as proprietary. This lack of transparency and the alleged inaccuracy of the scores have reportedly forced homeowners to accept lower sale prices or left properties sitting on the market for extended periods.

Hilgers stated that the company is leveraging climate activism to profit at the expense of Nebraskan homeowners' financial security. The lawsuit also highlights that major asset managers, including BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, hold significant stakes in the parent companies of the platforms distributing these scores.