After years of halting progress, New York Governor Kathy Hochul finally signed the state’s climate superfund into law in the waning hours of 2024.
The landmark legislation follows the “polluter pays” approach that a traditional, federally regulated superfund applies to ground and water pollution, and it expands the doctrine to the costs of damages from climate change, where greenhouse emissions are the analogous pollution. The law seeks to recover $75 billion from major oil and gas companies over the next 25 years, in $3 billion annual installments.
New York’s law is the second of its kind in the U.S. to adapt a traditional superfund model to climate disasters, joining Vermont, which passed the first climate superfund in May. The law’s passage in New York represents growing momentum for a coalition of Northeast states exploring this superfund model as a way to foot the bill for massive climate damages. Maryland, Massachusetts and California are considering similar legislation.
Like Vermont’s climate superfund, the New York law establishes a fund to cover the costs of rebuilding from climate disasters and of upgrading infrastructure for future storms.
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The oil industry has already appealed Vermont’s legislation and is gearing up for a fight in New York. “This type of legislation represents nothing more than a punitive new fee on American energy,” Scott Lauermann