New York will fine fossil fuel companies $74 billion over the next 25 years for environmental damage. The bill creates a “Climate Superfund” that supports state projects bolstering its environmental agenda.
“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,” Governor Kathy Hochul (D) said in a statement. “Establishing the Climate Superfund is the latest example of my administration taking action to hold polluters responsible for the damage done to our environment and requiring major investments in infrastructure and other projects critical to protecting our communities and economy.”
Companies will be fined based on the degree of greenhouse gases they emitted between 2000 and 2018, Reuters explained.
Democrat Senator Liz Krueger, one of the main proponents of the bill, said 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.”
“Too often over the last decade, courts have dismissed lawsuits against the oil and gas industry by saying that the issue of climate culpability should be decided by legislatures. Well, the Legislature of the State of New York – the 10th largest economy in the world – has accepted the invitation, and I hope we have made ourselves very clear: the planet’s largest climate polluters bear a unique responsibility for creating the climate crisis, and they must pay their fair share to help regular New Yorkers deal with the consequences. And there’s no question that those consequences are here, and they are serious.”
Krueger claimed that “repairing from and preparing for extreme weather caused by climate change will cost more than half a trillion dollars statewide by 2050. That’s over $65,000 per household, and that’s on top of the disruption, injury, and death that the climate crisis is causing in every corner of our state. The Climate Change Superfund Act is a critical piece of affordability legislation that will deliver billions of dollars every year to ease the burden on regular New Yorkers.”
