https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/12/26/new-york-climate-superfund/
New York aims to fine polluters up to $75 billion with new climate law
The law would raise $75 billion over 25 years from major carbon polluters, requiring them to pay for climate damage caused by increasingly severe weather.
“With nearly every record rainfall, heatwave, and coastal storm, New Yorkers are increasingly burdened with billions of dollars in health, safety, and environmental consequences due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment,” Hochul said in a statement.
“New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: the companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable,” state Sen. Liz Krueger (D), who sponsored the bill, said in a statement.
Known as the Climate Change Superfund Act, the law is similar to a bill that Vermont lawmakers approved last summer and that several other Democratic-led states, including California, Maryland and Massachusetts, considered but did not pass this year.
The idea behind the bills comes from the federal Superfund law, which forces polluting companies to clean up toxic waste sites. Environmentalists have pushed states to apply what is known as a “polluter pays” approach to worsening disasters fueled by climate change. Advances in climate attribution science and the growing costs states face from climate-fueled floods, hurricanes and wildfires have led to a surge of interest from Democratic lawmakers in passing a portion of the expense to corporations.
“It’s moving from one state working on it to a coast-to-coast interest among policymakers because they’re all facing the same problem: The costs of dealing with climate damage are astronomical and going higher,” said Blair Horner, executive director of NYPIRG, the New York Public Interest Research Group. “The federal government may not be there to help out. What does a state do?”
New York’s law is almost certain to face legal challenges. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s powerful lobbying group, sent state lawmakers a memo in 2023 saying the proposed bill was unconstitutional. A court would probably strike it down, the group said, because it was preempted by federal law and sought to hold companies responsible for the actions of society at large.
“This type of legislation represents nothing more than a punitive new fee on American energy, and we are evaluating our options moving forward,” API spokesman Scott Lauermann said in a statement released after the governor signed the bill.
Nationwide, weather-driven disasters are happening more frequently and costing the country about $150 billion each year, on average, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment, issued in 2023. The report painted a picture of a nation whose economy, environment and public health face deepening threats as the world grows hotter.
Yet federal disaster relief typically covers only a portion of what cities and towns need to spend to recover from a devastating flood or wildfire. The rest falls to states and municipalities — and their taxpayers.
In New York, the law’s supporters said a slew of storms this year had put the state’s growing vulnerability to climate change in stark relief. Since January, eight weather disasters have struck the state, each costing more than $1 billion in damage, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s a record for New York since data collection began in 1980. The previous record was set last year.
Opponents have said they fear fossil fuel companies will pass the pollution fines to consumers. In a September letter to Hochul’s office, the Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz suggested the governor shared those concerns and said they were unlikely. Oil prices are set by the global market, and the law’s cost to polluters is too small and affects too few companies to have wide-reaching effects on prices, he wrote.
Exactly which companies New York would fine for their emissions remains to be seen. The law applies to companies that emitted over 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide during the covered 18-year period. An NYPIRG analysis found that would probably include 30 to 40 firms, including major American oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron, as well as foreign companies with business in the state.
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Not that New York’s absurd Climate Change Superfund Act will survive its first brush with a court, but Big Oil should stop selling gasoline in New York for a week and watch New York Democrats get wiped out in the next election. https://t.co/t1U0KBTCRZ pic.twitter.com/A2VShd2Dql
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) December 27, 2024
Some inconvenient truth for New York’s absurd Climate Change Superfund Act: The new law is meant to punish Big Oil for emissions from 2000 to 2018. But there was no warming in New York during that period. New York’s average temp in 2000 was 45.7°F. In 2018, it was 45.7°F –… pic.twitter.com/VydtjTmDkB
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) December 27, 2024
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“With nearly every record rainfall, heatwave, and coastal storm, New Yorkers are increasingly burdened with billions of dollars in health, safety, and environmental consequences due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment,” Hochul said in a statement.
“This type of legislation represents nothing more than a punitive new fee on American energy, and we are evaluating our options moving forward,” API spokesman Scott Lauermann said in a statement released after the governor signed the bill.
Opponents have said they fear fossil fuel companies will pass the pollution fines to consumers. In a September letter to Hochul’s office, the Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz suggested the governor shared those concerns and said they were unlikely. Oil prices are set by the global market, and the law’s cost to polluters is too small and affects too few companies to have wide-reaching effects on prices, he wrote.
