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climate change superfund act
'Major Victory': New Law Makes NY Second State to Hold Big Polluters Accountable
"The billions begin to add up. This is, more or less, how the states slowly and then quite rapidly took down the tobacco industry," said climate leader Bill McKibben.
Dec 26, 2024
Climate advocates in New York on Thursday celebrated a "massive win" for working people, youth, and the climate as Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul made the state the second to pass a law to make fossil fuel giants financially responsible for the environmental damages they cause.
Hochul signed the Climate Change Superfund Act into law after years of advocacy, delivering what Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), called "a welcome holiday gift for New York taxpayers."
The law is modeled on the 1980 State and Federal Superfund law, which requires corporations to fund the cleanup of toxic waste that they cause, and will require the largest fossil fuel companies, which are responsible for a majority of carbon emissions since the beginning of this century, to pay about $3 billion per year for 25 years.
The money—which otherwise would have to be paid by taxpayers, many of whom are already suffering from the extreme weather caused by fossil fuel emissions—will be used to restore and safeguard wetlands, upgrade public infrastructure, improve storm water drainage systems, and pay for climate disaster recovery efforts.
The law will "reinvest $75 billion into the communities most impacted by toxic air pollution, record-breaking storms, and dangerous heatwaves," said Theodore Moore, executive director of the Alliance for a Greater New York.
Lee Wasserman, director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, which lobbied for the new law, told The New York Times that "nothing could be fairer than making climate polluters pay."
New York state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-28), who sponsored the legislation, told the Times that repairs from extreme weather disasters and climate adaptation is projected to cost half a trillion dollars in New York 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," Krueger said.
State Rep. Phara Souffrant Forrest (D-57) said the new law adopts a "they broke it, they bought it" approach for climate disasters and fossil fuel emissions.
New York taxpayers learned in 2024 that they would be funding $2.2 billion in climate-related infrastructure repairs and upgrades, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates $52 billion would be needed to protect New York Harbor.
"On top of that, we’ll need $75-100 billion to protect Long Island, and $55 billion for climate costs across the rest of the state," said NYPIRG. "The state comptroller has predicted that more than half of local governments' costs will be attributable to the climate crisis."
Looking at the industry and its $1 trillion in profits over the last four years, one would never know that the emissions of the world's largest polluting corporations have helped rack up $5.4 trillion in climate damages over the last 26 years.
"Our future is on fire, New York is on fire, and meanwhile the fossil fuel industry is bringing in trillions of dollars in profit year after year," said Keanu Arpels-Josiah, organizer for Fridays for Future NYC. "It's high time for them to pay their fair share in New York. The signing of the full Climate Superfund Act, as youth across the state have advocated for year after year, is a critical step toward that—let this be the beginning of a shift on climate from this governor."
NYPIRG emphasized that the costs will not fall back on consumers.
"According to experts, because Big Oil's payments would reflect past contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, oil companies would have to treat their payments as one-time fixed costs," said the group.
New York is the second state to pass a law ensuring big polluters will play for climate damages. Vermont passed a similar law over the summer—a year after a federal emergency was declared across the state after a storm dumped two months' worth of rain in just two days, causing historic and devastating flooding.
Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media, said the Climate Change Superfund Act "kicks open the door for more states to follow."
Similar legislation has been proposed in states including Maryland and New Jersey.
Krueger told The Wall Street Journal earlier this year that she would "prefer this all be done at the federal level," but as author and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben wrote Thursday, Hochul's signing of the Climate Change Superfund Act answers the question: "How do we proceed with the most important fight in the world, when the most important office in the world is about to be filled by a climate denier, and when there's a Congress with no hope of advancing serious legislation?"
"One important answer is: We go state by state, and city by city, making gains everywhere we still can," said McKibben, less than a month before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.
"And now those other states may join in too. The billions begin to add up. This is, more or less, how the states slowly and then quite rapidly took down the tobacco industry," he wrote. "So—many many thanks to the people who but their bodies on the line these past days, and those who have worked so hard for years to get us here. This may be what progress looks like in the Trump years."
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New Yorkers Can’t Afford for Gov Hochul to Keep Delaying Climate Action
As we gear up for another summer of extreme weather events, we need our elected leaders to understand the urgency for action.
Jun 12, 2024
This past weekend, the New York State Assembly finally got its act together and passed an urgent piece of climate legislation, the Climate Change Superfund Act. Designed to make fossil fuel corporations pay for the damage they have done to the environment, the bill, initially passed by the Senate earlier this spring, now heads to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk. It is imperative that the governor, after consistently backing down on climate this year, signs this bill into law.
Gov. Hochul’s reticence to pursue climate action is, at this point, well-established. Just last week, she made headlines for slamming the brakes on a congestion pricing initiative that was supposed to take effect later this month. The impending tolls would have reduced traffic in downtown Manhattan, improved air quality, and funded much-needed upgrades to public transit. Combined with the Inflation Reduction Act’s groundbreaking federal investments in clean energy nationwide, congestion pricing would have moved our state one step closer to a sustainable future. Instead, Gov. Hochul chose to play petty politics with the livability of our city.
Last month, as I prepared for another summer of extreme weather events in New York City, I joined hundreds of climate activists in Albany to demand that the state legislature pass the Superfund Act and another climate-related bill—the HEAT Act. I marched through the halls of the State Capitol, linking arms with climate activists of all faiths, holding banners, chanting songs, and demanding climate action from the New York State Assembly and Gov. Hochul.
Should Gov. Hochul fail to act, here’s what we can expect more of: a hotter New York City, plagued by more frequent and more severe storms, flooding, and air pollution.
Gov. Hochul’s behavior is forcing us to take action. Not even two months ago, she chose to exclude the NY HEAT and Climate Superfund Acts from the annual state budget. Then she backed down on congestion pricing. As the days heat up, it’s more important than ever that our elected officials deliver on their promise to ensure a liveable future for our communities here in New York City.
Last summer, extreme weather wreaked havoc across our city. Between smoky skies and flooded streets, city life was consistently derailed by out-of-control weather conditions. September 2023 was the wettest September in New York City in over a century. And, a year later, we seem headed into another stormy summer. In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that 2024 will see above-normal hurricane activity.
These extreme weather events and others are a direct result of climate change. Canadian wildfires are getting more intense as a hotter and drier fire season becomes the norm. Warmer ocean temperatures are fueling stronger tropical storms, and climate change is making heatwaves more frequent and more extreme. These are ramifications of climate change that our governor needs to take seriously: Inaction simply isn’t an option.
This August will mark two years since President Joe Biden signed the most significant piece of climate legislation in American history into law. The Inflation Reduction Act devoted $370 billion to lowering energy costs for American households, building out clean energy, and other climate solutions. In New York State, IRA capital is already starting to flow to consumers. Since 2023, New Yorkers have been eligible for tax credits that make buying an electric vehicle, upgrading home heating and cooling systems, and replacing inefficient refrigerators more affordable. A few weeks ago, New York became the first state to offer rebates to low- and middle-income New Yorkers who want to make clean-energy upgrades to their homes. Passing the Superfund and HEAT Acts, and reversing her ill-advised decision on congestion pricing, is simply the most sensible thing for Gov. Hochul to do.
New York City is already suffering from a bad case of the heat island effect, a phenomenon where dense urban areas experience higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas, largely due to vehicular traffic. We cannot afford to let unregulated vehicle traffic continue to overheat our city. Should Gov. Hochul fail to act, here’s what we can expect more of: a hotter New York City, plagued by more frequent and more severe storms, flooding, and air pollution.
My worries about the risks of inaction are exactly why I made the trip to Albany earlier this spring. As we gear up for another summer of extreme weather events, we need our elected leaders to understand the urgency for action. Gov. Hochul can’t continue to ignore the climate crisis. She must reverse her position on congestion pricing, sign the Superfund Act, and steer the HEAT Act into law. We simply can’t afford to play politics or wait any longer.
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NY Gov. Hochul 'Must Sign' Climate Change Superfund Act
"Gov. Hochul, fresh off a spineless congestion pricing reversal that scandalized New Yorkers, needs to get back to work and make this landmark legislation the law of the land," said one campaigner.
Jun 08, 2024
After what New Yorkers and environmental campaigners called a "betrayal" by Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this week, the Democrat is now under pressure to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act, which state legislators finally passed early Saturday morning.
Noting that the 95-46 New York State Assembly vote happened after 3:00am and followed the Senate passing the bill, Empire State Indivisible declared Saturday that "there can be no further delay! Gov. Kathy Hochul must sign the climate superfund into law IMMEDIATELY so NYS' worst and wealthiest polluters pay for the harm they've caused our communities!"
New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) similarly celebrated the passage of the bill, which—if signed by the governor—will force establish a 25-year fund financed by fossil fuel companies, with a third of the $3 billion in annual funding reserved for disadvantaged communities disproportionately affected by the climate emergency.
"The historic legislative approval of the Climate Change Superfund Act," NYPIRG said, "is a huge step toward ensuring that Big Oil contributes to the mounting costs of climate catastrophe. Of course, the bill cannot become law without Gov. Hochul's approval, but the act helps protect taxpayers and allows revenues to be made available to contribute toward necessary—but expensive—resiliency projects."
"The sponsors and the supportive lawmakers in both the Senate and Assembly deserve credit for making sure that Big Oil adheres to the lesson that we all learned as kids, 'you make a mess, you clean it up,'" the group added.
"It's time to make polluters pay, and it's time Gov. Hochul acted as the climate leader she promised the Pope she would be."
Food & Water Watch senior New York organizer Eric Weltman also welcomed the vote, saying that "the Climate Change Superfund Act is the legislation New Yorkers need right now. We applaud the Assembly for coming to their senses in the final hours of the legislative session and passing this critical bill. Now, Gov. Hochul, fresh off a spineless congestion pricing reversal that scandalized New Yorkers, needs to get back to work and make this landmark legislation the law of the land."
As Common Dreamsreported Thursday, Hochul faced intense criticism this week for reversing her support for a first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan and halting its implementation in New York City, jeopardizing not only expected emissions cuts but also much-needed funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Weltman asserted that "it's time to make polluters pay, and it's time Gov. Hochul acted as the climate leader she promised the Pope she would be. Hochul desperately needs to look good—signing this legislation is the perfect opportunity to do something right for a change."
Other campaigners and New Yorkers also noted the governor's recent move. After highlighting some "huge victories for workers," ALIGN executive director Theodore A. Moore said that "at the eleventh hour, the Assembly also passed the Climate Superfund Act, joining the ever-growing chorus of New Yorkers saying enough is enough, and placing the burden of rising climate costs on Big Oil and corporate polluters, not just working families."
"But one 'environmental thing' a year won't meet the climate crisis at the speed it's racing past us, especially when long-fought wins like congestion pricing can be demolished in an instant," Moore stressed. "Without aggressively transitioning New York off of fossil fuels and creating the green jobs of the future, the Legislature calls it quits on our state's survival."
After the congestion pricing decision, author and activist Bill McKibben, who founded Third Act, wrote that "if any possible good could come from Hochul's cold-blooded betrayal, it's that she, and Albany Democrats in general, might feel the need to give environmentalists some kind of win."
The New York Home Energy Affordable Transition (NY HEAT) Act, "and the climate superfund bill, are both up for action in this final week of the legislative session," McKibben noted earlier this week. "It would be scant comfort to see them passed in the wake of this shocking schism, but it would be something."
While supporters of the Climate Change Superfund Act are now hopeful that Hochul will sign it—and make her state the second, after Vermont, to enact such legislation—they also expressed disappointment that other bills weren't passed this session, particularly Senate-approved NY HEAT Act, which aims to limit reliance on gas.
"With Gov. Hochul dropping a major bomb on climate action by delaying congestion pricing, the Assembly failed to rise to the occasion to pass the key climate policy New Yorkers need to cut energy bills and ensure the state is on track to meet our climate goal—the NY HEAT Act," said Liz Moran, New York policy advocate for Earthjustice.
"With utilities already proposing to raise already high bills rising due to our reliance upon gas infrastructure, and one year after we saw orange skies, the Assembly has turned their backs on the policy solution," she continued. "The same body that once championed our nation-leading climate law has now earned a reputation as the body holding back the policies New York needs to meet what is laid out in this law."
The Renewable Heat Now also decried the Assembly's "astonishing failure" to pass the bill. Jessica Azulay, executive director of Alliance for a Green Economy, which is part of the campaign, emphasized that "the NY HEAT Act would have been a lifeline for New Yorkers struggling with high energy costs and facing the devastating impacts of the climate emergency."
"Our leaders in Albany—the state Assembly first and foremost—have once again shown where they stand by refusing to implement the state's landmark climate law and enable a strategic and cost-effective transition away from fossil fuels in buildings," Azulay said. "Their blockage of this bill for three years in a row is a shameful abdication of their duty to serve the people they represent. We will not forget this failure as we struggle with utility shutoffs, high temperatures, and bad air this summer."
Along with also expressing support for the NY HEAT Act, which "would help save ratepayer dollars and curtail the expansion of the state's reliance on fossil fuels," NYPIRG noted that "the state's worsening solid waste disposal problem was not addressed and both the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act and the Bigger, Better, Bottle Bill are two important components toward reducing trash that is filling up the state's landfills."
"We urge action on those issues," the group said, "and we urge Gov. Hochul to approve the Climate Change Superfund Act."
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