Kathy Hochul, Governor of New York Historic climate legislation signed The bill was signed into law last week, showing how states can continue to hold polluters accountable even as President-elect Donald Trump rolls back environmental protections.
New York Climate Change Superfund Law will require the largest multinational oil and gas companies to contribute to a fund that will be used for infrastructure projects aimed at protecting New York residents from increasingly dangerous climate disasters, such as storms and rising sea levels.
“New York has fired a shot that will be heard around the world”
Trump will soon be back in office and is expected to dismantle existing climate policies and gut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), having openly opened belittled clean energy and federal environmental regulations in the electoral campaign. So, at least for the next four years, Americans will have to rely on local and state efforts like this one to address the fossil fuel pollution that is causing climate change.
“New York has fired a shot that will be heard around the world: the companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable,” said state Senator Liz Krueger in a statement after Hochul signed the Climate Change Superfund Act into law.
Krueger's office expects the law to generate $75 billion over the next 25 years. But for the immediate future, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will first have to come up with guidelines for how the fund works. That includes rules about who has to contribute to the fund, how the state raises the money and what types of infrastructure projects the fund will support. the law will apply to fossil fuel companies historically responsible for more than one billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions. And at least 35 percent of the fund's benefits are supposed to reach “disadvantaged” communities.
The plan is loosely modeled on state and federal laws that have been in place for decades to hold companies responsible for toxic waste sites they leave behind. But instead of spending money on cleaning up hazardous substances at former industrial sites, New York's new law would fund resiliency projects such as improving stormwater drainage systems.
“New York taxpayers were 100 percent on the hook for climate costs. Now Big Oil will pay for much of the damage they helped cause,” New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) Executive Director Blair Horner said in a statement. Press release.
The Climate Change Superfund Act is supposed to reduce the future tax burden on New Yorkers by $3 billion each year, according to NYPIRG. Extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change are expected to cost half a trillion dollars in preparedness and recovery efforts in New York by 2050, Kreuger's office says.
Joe Biden established a goal to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 pollution levels, as part of the country's commitment to the Paris climate agreement. He also signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive spending package that set aside $369 billion for climate action and clean energy technologies.
Trump, on the other hand, says that Pull the United States back out of the Paris agreement. (which he did briefly during his first term before Biden recommitted the US to the deal). The president-elect has also said that rescind any unspent funds of the Inflation Reduction Law. Hisrolled back more than 100 environmental regulations when he was president last time, and says his election to the Environmental Protection Agency this time will ensure “rapid deregulation decisions” at the agency once again.
Still, state laws can make up for some of the ground lost in the fight against climate change. New York's Climate Superfund Law will have to survive any legal challengesof course. But this is not the first time the state has drawn up ambitious environmental plans while facing Trump's hostility toward climate action. In 2019, New York State approved its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Law. That put the state in a path reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030, although progress has been slow Since then.
New York's latest response to the environmental deregulation on the horizon is just one part of a broader trend that marked Trump's first presidency and is about to be part of his second. At the beginning of this year, Vermont passed its own Climate Superfund law. Similar legislation has also been introduced in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jerseyand in Congress, according to the nonprofit organization Food & Water Watch.
