Controversial decision undercuts New York law that sought $75 billion from the largest historical emitters to fund climate resilience, rather than taxpayers footing the bill for extreme weather impacts
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Despite a controversial ruling out of New York State, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) vowed to continue efforts to make polluters, not taxpayers, pay for mounting climate damages. A federal circuit court judge ruled Monday that New York could not enforce its Climate Change Superfund Act. This ruling, which will likely be appealed, was based on a controversial decision made by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and does not amount to a national rejection of climate superfund laws.
New York’s Superfund law, enacted in 2024, would have required the world’s largest fossil fuel companies responsible for significant historical greenhouse gas emissions to contribute to a $75 billion fund supporting climate resilience and adaptation in the Empire State. The fund was designed to help frontline communities address the escalating financial burdens of flooding, extreme heat, infrastructure damage, and other climate change-related impacts.
“Communities should not be forced to shoulder the enormous costs of a climate crisis they did not create,” said Quentin Scott, Federal Policy Director at Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “For decades, fossil fuel companies have profited from selling products that drive climate change, while families are left paying for flooded homes, damaged infrastructure, extreme heat, and rising costs. The industry’s preferred outcome is that the public pays all the costs of their pollution. We cannot accept a system where polluters keep the profits and taxpayers are left with the bill.”
As communities across the country face mounting costs from climate-driven disasters and extreme weather, climate superfund laws are an effort to establish a simple principle we all learn as children: those who helped make the mess should help clean up the mess.
This is NOT the final word on state superfund bills. The result is a reflection of one judge’s interpretation of a controversial precedent from a fundamentally different case. That controversial precedent is not binding across most of the rest of the country, and states should not be discouraged from pursuing innovative approaches to climate accountability. CCAN will continue to pursue Superfund policies in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
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Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, DC and beyond.
