Lawyers for the Competitive Enterprise Institute are asking the Securities Exchange Commission to investigate potential fraud involving inconsistent climate change claims of California cities and counties in their bond offerings.

A Feb. 1 letter to the SEC's finance abuse unit chief says that allegations of sea-level rises in recent lawsuits against oil and gas companies don't match statements local governments made to investors that they are unable to predict when impacts of climate change will occur.

The inconsistencies raise "serious questions of municipal bond fraud," the letter states.

...The letter points to inconsistencies between lawsuits brought by San Francisco, Oakland, Imperial Beach and the counties of San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Marin, and their bond offerings.

...Last month, ExxonMobil petitioned a state court in Texas to allow it to question lawyers and government officials involved in the California litigation and bond offerings.