New York becomes the second state to enact a ‘polluter-pay’ Climate Change SuperFund Act. New Jersey, California, and Maryland could be next.
The state of New York will charge carbon-emitting companies an estimated $75 billion in climate damage they allegedly caused between 2000 and 2018 under a law enacted on Dec. 26.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Climate Change Superfund Act into law on Thursday. The law is certain to be challenged in court as a state preemption of federal regulatory oversight.
Adopted by lawmakers in June, the law—which goes into effect in 2028—will annually assess large companies’ carbon emissions across those first 19 years of the 21st century to “repair damage caused by extreme weather” they said aggravated by greenhouse gas emissions.
“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,” said Democratic state Sen. Liz Krueger, a lead sponsor of the New York Climate Change Superfund Act.
The bill estimates compliance will cost about three dozen of the state’s largest carbon-emitting companies about $3 billion collectively each year for the next 25 years—$75 billion in total. That would be 15 percent of the $500 billion the Fiscal Policy Institute estimates the law could actually end up costing by 2050.
“With nearly every record rainfall, heat wave, 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 Dec. 26 statement released by her office, noting that $500 billion equates to “more than $65,000 per household.”
The money will go into a Climate Change Adaptation Cost Recovery Program to restore and protect coastal wetlands, and upgrade roads, bridges, and stormwater systems, among other infrastructure resiliency projects and programs.
New York’s law is modeled after the 1980 federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), or Superfund law, which requires companies responsible for pollution to pay for cleanup and remediation of polluted land, water, and air.
By John Haughey
