{"id":66742,"date":"2025-05-22T12:47:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T19:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energi.media\/?p=66742"},"modified":"2025-05-22T12:47:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T19:47:57","slug":"despite-backlash-more-states-are-considering-laws-to-make-big-oil-pay-for-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energi.media\/news\/despite-backlash-more-states-are-considering-laws-to-make-big-oil-pay-for-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite backlash, more states are considering laws to make Big Oil pay for climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was published by Grist<\/a> on May 19, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Akielly Hu<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As climate disasters strain state budgets, a growing number of lawmakers want fossil fuel companies to pay for damages caused by their greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

Last May,\u00a0Vermont became the first state<\/a> to pass a climate Superfund law. The concept is modelled after the 1980 federal Superfund law, which holds companies responsible for the costs of cleaning up their hazardous waste spills. The state-level climate version requires major oil and gas companies to pay for climate-related disaster and adaptation costs, based on their share of global greenhouse gas emissions over the past few decades. Vermont\u2019s law passed after the state experienced torrential\u00a0flooding in 2023<\/a>. In December,\u00a0New York<\/a>\u00a0became the second state to pass such a law.<\/p>\n

This year, 11 states, from\u00a0California<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0Maine<\/a>, have introduced their own climate Superfund bills. Momentum is growing even as Vermont and New York\u2019s laws face legal challenges by fossil fuel companies, Republican-led states, and the Trump administration. Lawmakers and climate advocates told Grist that they always expected backlash, given the billions of dollars at stake for the oil and gas industry \u2014\u00a0but that states have no choice but to find ways to pay the enormous costs of protecting and repairing infrastructure in the face of increasing floods, wildfires, and other disasters.<\/p>\n

The opposition \u201cemboldens our fight more,\u201d said Maryland state delegate Adrian Boafo, who represents Prince George\u2019s County and co-sponsored a climate Superfund bill that passed the state legislature in March. \u201cIt means that we have to do everything we can in Maryland to protect our citizens, because we can\u2019t rely on the federal government in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Protestors hold signs in support of New York\u2019s climate Superfund bill in 2023. Michael M. Santiago \/ Getty Images<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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While the concept of a climate Superfund has been around\u00a0for decades<\/a>, it\u2019s only in recent years that states have begun to seriously consider these laws. In Maryland, federal inaction on climate change and the growing burden of climate change on government budgets have led to a surge of interest, said Boafo. Cities and counties are getting hit with huge unexpected costs from damage to stormwater systems, streets, highways, and other public infrastructure. They\u2019re also struggling to provide immediate disaster relief to residents and to prepare for future climate events. Maryland has faced at least $10 billion to $20 billion in disaster costs between 1980 and 2024, according to a\u00a0recent state report<\/a>. Meanwhile, up until now, governments, businesses, and individuals have borne 100 percent of these costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realized that these big fossil fuel companies were, frankly, not paying their fair share for the climate crisis that they\u2019ve caused,\u201d Boafo said.<\/p>\n

Recent bills have also been spurred by increased sophistication in attribution science, said Martin Lockman, a climate law fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Researchers are now able to use climate models to\u00a0link extreme weather events<\/a>\u00a0to greenhouse gas emissions from specific companies. The field provides a quantitative way for governments to determine which oil and gas companies should pay for climate damages, and how much.<\/p>\n

Vermont\u2019s law sets up a process for the government to first\u00a0tally up the costs<\/a>\u00a0of climate harms in the state caused by the greenhouse gas emissions of major oil and gas companies between 1995 and 2024. The state will then determine how much of those costs each company is responsible for, invoice them accordingly, and devote the funds to climate infrastructure and resilience projects. New York\u2019s law, by contrast, sets\u00a0a funding target<\/a>\u00a0ahead of time by requiring certain fossil fuel companies to pay a total of $75 billion, or $3 billion per year over 25 years. The amount each company has to pay is proportionate to their share of global greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2024. Both Vermont and New York\u2019s laws apply only to companies that have emitted over 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over their respective covered periods. That would include Exxon Mobil, Shell, and other\u00a0oil and gas giants<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maryland\u2019s law is so far the only climate Superfund-related legislation to pass a state legislature this year, although Governor Wes Moore\u00a0vetoed the measure<\/a>\u00a0late on Friday<\/a>. The original draft of the bill would have required major fossil fuel companies to pay a one-time fee for their historic carbon emissions. But over the course of the legislative session, the bill was amended to instead simply\u00a0require a study on the cumulative costs of climate change<\/a>\u00a0in Maryland, to understand how much money an eventual program would need to raise. The study would be due by December 2026, at which point Maryland lawmakers would need to propose new legislation to actually implement a climate Superfund program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish it wasn\u2019t amended the way it was,\u201d Boafo said, adding that lawmakers devoted much of their energy this legislative session to addressing Maryland\u2019s\u00a0$3.3 billion budget deficit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a veto letter, Moore stated that Maryland\u2019s \u201cbudget situation\u201d and \u201cchaos from Washington, D.C.\u201d mean that the state needs to reconsider any bills that require resource-intensive studies. \u201cWe face a real and present danger from a White House that continues to attack our economy with reckless abandon,\u201d Moore wrote. \u201cIn this time of profound uncertainty, we must evaluate every expenditure with a critical eye towards our future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Climate advocates decried the governor\u2019s decision,\u00a0calling it<\/a>\u00a0\u201can inexplicable reversal of a position that threatens to stymie Maryland\u2019s climate progress for negligible budget savings.\u201d In a joint press release by three environmental groups, Kim Coble, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, said, \u201cThis veto is not fiscal responsibility, it\u2019s a definitive step in the opposite direction of our climate goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

In California, environmental groups are optimistic about the chances of a bill passing this year. This is the second year a climate Superfund bill has been introduced in the state, and the sponsors of the new bill have focused on building a broad coalition of environmental, community, and labor groups around the proposal, said Sabrina Ashjian, project director for the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. This year\u2019s legislation was introduced shortly after the devastating\u00a0Los Angeles wildfires in January<\/a>, which could amplify lawmakers\u2019 sense of urgency. The bill has now passed out of each legislative chamber\u2019s environmental committee and is awaiting votes in their respective judiciary committees. If passed, the bill will next move to the full Senate and Assembly for a final vote.<\/p>\n

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Smoke from the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles County in January. Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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In the meantime, legislators are keeping a close eye on ongoing legal challenges to Vermont\u2019s and New York\u2019s laws. In January, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, two trade groups,\u00a0launched a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against Vermont\u2019s climate Superfund law. In February, 22 Republican state attorneys general and industry groups filed a lawsuit against\u00a0New York\u2019s law<\/a>. Both challenges claim that the laws violate interstate commerce protections and are preempted by federal law. Because the federal Clean Air Act regulates greenhouse gas emissions, the groups argue, states cannot pass laws related to climate damages.<\/p>\n

Now the Trump administration has joined the legal battle. On May 1, the Department of Justice sued the states of\u00a0New York<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Vermont<\/a>\u00a0over their climate Superfund programs, echoing the same arguments raised by the fossil fuel industry. The same day, the department also sued the states of\u00a0Hawai\u02bbi and Michigan<\/a>\u00a0over their intentions to sue fossil fuel companies for climate-related damages. All four lawsuits frequently use identical language, Lockman pointed out. The lawsuits follow last month\u2019s\u00a0executive order<\/a>\u00a0by President Donald Trump that called for the Justice Department to challenge state climate policies, and directly targeted Vermont and New York\u2019s climate Superfund laws. Shortly after the Justice Department\u2019s lawsuits were filed,\u00a0West Virginia and 23 other states<\/a>\u00a0announced they would join the existing lawsuit against Vermont\u2019s law led by the Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute.<\/p>\n

Legal experts noted that Trump\u2019s executive order itself has\u00a0no legal impact<\/a>, and that states have well-established authority to implement environmental policies. Patrick Parenteau, a legal scholar at Vermont Law and Graduate School, told the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0he expected the Justice Department\u2019s cases to be dismissed. A court could end up consolidating the federal suits with existing challenges against Vermont and New York\u2019s laws, although given that they raise the same arguments, \u201cthere\u2019s really nothing new being added here,\u201d said Lockman.<\/p>\n

Climate experts told Grist that with huge amounts of money and liability at stake, lawsuits from the fossil fuel industry weren\u2019t unexpected. Boafo said that given how much financial and political support the Trump campaign\u00a0received from oil and gas<\/a>\u00a0corporations, it\u2019s not a surprise that the Justice Department has sued New York and Vermont. Pursuing these laws invites inevitable opposition \u2014 but avoiding the growing costs of climate devastation is even riskier, advocates said.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are \u201cpassing these bills because in writing budgets, in dealing with the day-to-day operation of their states, they\u2019re facing really serious questions about how our society is going to allocate the harms of climate change,\u201d said Lockman. \u201cI suspect that the lawmakers who are advocating for these bills are in it for the long haul.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article has been updated with information about Maryland Governor Wes Moore\u2019s veto of his state\u2019s climate Superfund bill.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was published by Grist on May 19, 2025. 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