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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (Photo by Marc A. Hermann / CC BY 2.0)
This story was originally published by Canary Media.
New York state will soon force major oil and gas companies to pay up for mounting climate damages caused by the burning of their products over the last two decades.
On Dec. 26, 2024, lawmakers passed the Climate Change Superfund Act, modeled after federal and state Superfund laws that retroactively force polluters to fund the cleanup of their toxic waste. The New York legislation will require fossil-fuel companies responsible for the bulk of historic greenhouse gas emissions to pay a combined $3 billion each year for 25 years for infrastructure repairs and upgrades needed to recover from and adapt to climate change impacts like natural disasters, sea-level rise, and extreme heat.
New York is the second state to adopt a climate Superfund law following Vermont’s passage of a similar law last year. While it will take several years for state agencies to hammer out the details of exactly which companies will pay and how much, advocates say that the law marks an important step toward greater climate accountability in the Empire State.
Blair Horner, senior policy advisor at the New York Public Interest Research Group, an advocacy organization closely involved with the law’s passage, described the law as a form of taxpayer relief for New Yorkers who — up until now — have paid for 100 percent of the costs of climate change. “This spreads the responsibility to what is likely to be the largest oil and gas companies,” Horner said.
An analysis by NYPIRG found that state taxpayers paid $2.2 billion in 2023 for climate-related repairs and projects. Those costs are only growing: A recent study by the state comptroller found that between 2018 and 2028, more than half of local government spending will be related to climate impacts. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that protecting New York City from storm flooding will cost $52 billion, while protecting Long Island from natural disasters will cost up to $100 billion.
Legislators pointed out that $3 billion represents a fraction of the annual profits from the oil and gas industry, where the top three domestic producers made a combined $85.6 billion in profits in 2023 alone.
Most of the funds raised from New York’s law will go toward disaster response and immediate infrastructure needs to cope with a warming climate, including upgrading stormwater drainage systems and sewage treatment plants, protecting coastlines, and repairing roads and public transit lines. Some of the money may also go toward energy efficiency projects, such as installing efficient cooling systems in schools and public housing, and weatherization and other building upgrades.
Exactly how and where funds get spent will be detailed in a statewide climate adaptation plan expected sometime in the next few years. According to the law, state officials will also need to identify which high-emitting companies should pay and what proportion of the costs they should bear. Amendments to the law, expected to pass sometime this month, will clarify the exact regulatory timeline. As of now, the state is “unlikely to see any money” roll out from the program before December 2028, said Horner.
The law is designed to address climate damages rather than reduce emissions at the source, said Liz Moran, a New York–based policy advocate for the nonprofit Earthjustice. While it’s possible that funding from the program could end up displacing fossil fuels by, for example, installing heat pumps in schools to provide air conditioning during extreme heat, that would be an incidental benefit rather than the project’s main purpose.
New York already has several laws on the books aimed at directly driving down emissions, including a 2019 law requiring the state to reduce economy-wide emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and an amendment to the state budget enabling the New York Power Authority to build, own, and operate clean energy projects. A statewide cap-and-invest program is also expected to kick in this year and raise $3 billion in its first year, funding everything from lower energy bills to air pollution reduction.
The climate Superfund law could also help pay for upgrades to the electrical grid to increase resilience during extreme weather, including “supporting the creation of self-sufficient clean energy microgrids.” In North Carolina, solar-battery microgrids in remote communities quickly restored power in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, pointing to the potential for distributed energy to increase reliability during storms.
New York’s law has already faced criticism from oil and gas producers and could face litigation. That’s happening now in Vermont, which passed its climate Superfund act in May: Last Monday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, the country’s largest oil and gas trade association, launched a lawsuit against Vermont’s policy, calling it an “excessive overreach by the states that want to usurp the role of federal regulators.” The result could sway other states considering climate Superfund laws, including California, Maryland, and Massachusetts.
Moran from Earthjustice described New York’s and Vermont’s laws as an overdue step to hold fossilfuel companies accountable for the climate crisis they have caused.
“The oil and gas industry blames the consumer for the climate crisis. They say, ‘You used our product. You’re at fault,’” Moran said. “Meanwhile, we’ve been locked into that product for decades longer than necessary because that same industry has spent billions of dollars lying to the public and preventing progress from happening at every level.”