Hochul Follies
2025-01-14 06:51:31 UTC
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Permalinkrequiring them to pay for climate damage caused by increasingly severe
weather.
New York became the second state to require fossil fuel companies to pay
for climate damage, joining a growing effort to hold major polluters
accountable for more frequent and costly extreme weather disasters.
The bill New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed into law on Thursday would
allow the state to fine the biggest greenhouse gas emitters a total of $75
billion, to be paid over 25 years into a fund based on their contribution
to overall emissions between 2000 and 2018. That money would be used to
pay for the damage already done to homes, roads and bridges and help
cover the cost of preparing for increasingly extreme weather in the years
to come.
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.
Its moving from one state working on it to a coast-to-coast interest
among policymakers because theyre 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 Yorks law is almost certain to face legal challenges. The American
Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industrys 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 laws supporters said a slew of storms this year had put
the states 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. Thats a record for New York since data
collection began in 1980. The previous record was set last year.
In August, a powerful storm system deluged parts of New York and
Connecticut, killing two people. Flash flooding caused by record rainfall
damaged roads, homes and buildings on Stony Brook Universitys campus and
caused the breach of dams in Suffolk County, New York. It was a 1-in-
1,000-year rainstorm for the area.
Opponents have said they fear fossil fuel companies will pass the
pollution fines to consumers. In a September letter to Hochuls 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 laws 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.
Supporters said that the laws projected $75 billion cost is a fraction of
what climate change will cost New York and that residents are already
paying for a hotter climate through local taxes and higher home insurance
rates. In New York City alone, officials estimate it will take $100
billion to upgrade the citys sewer system so it can withstand more
powerful hurricanes fueled by climate change. Billions more may be needed
to defend the citys harbor and protect people living in basement
apartments that can turn into death traps during torrential rain storms.
It has taken more than four years for the idea of making polluters pay to
gain traction among New York Democrats, who control both chambers of the
state legislature. Advocates scored a win in 2023, when the state Senate
approved the idea, but the state Assembly didnt act on it and Hochul
didnt embrace it.
Its passage was also uncertain this year. After the Senate and the
Assembly approved the bill over the summer, an agreement with the governor
was not worked out until after President-elect Donald Trumps win, which
has put many federal climate efforts in jeopardy and left some blue-state
leaders bracing for conflict and looking for ways to show leadership on
climate change. After Trumps victory, Hochul revived a congestion pricing
program to reduce traffic, air pollution and carbon emissions in New York
City one she had abruptly suspended five months before.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/12/26/new-york-
climate-superfund/