Hochul signs $75B climate superfund bill targeting oil companies

The superfund bill, likely to be challenged, was a top climate priority this year

By Raga Justin/Times Union

Oil and gas companies could be on the hook for billions of dollars to compensate for environmental pollution after Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday signed the Climate Change Superfund Act, a long-cherished priority for advocates who blame global warming on fossil fuels. 

Democratic lawmakers and environmental advocates have asserted that fossil fuel producers have historically knowingly downplayed the effects of the production of fossil fuels on the environment and have been responsible for the emission of greenhouse gasses that have contributed to global warming and other negative effects on the climate. The solution, advocates have suggested, is to compel those companies to pay into a $75 billion superfund that would be used to pay for climate resiliency projects around New York. 

Business groups had opposed the legislation, blaming consumers and noting that the regulations would likely drive up costs for households and businesses. 

There has also been tacit acknowledgement that the legislation will likely face court challenges.

“For too long New Yorkers have borne the costs of the climate crisis, which is impacting every part of this state, including through extreme weather events that have become increasingly common, dangerous and costly,” Hochul said in a statement on Thursday. 

The bill passed the Legislature in June after some debate over its feasibility. Though its chances at passage had been viewed as relatively slim, the legislation ultimately became a top environmental priority after the collapse of congestion pricing, a toll program impacting Manhattan’s busiest areas that had also been championed by climate change lobbyists. 

As a model for the New York program, proponents have pointed to existing federal superfund law, which was established by Congress in 1980 to fund the cleanup of sites contaminated by hazardous waste. The program compels the parties responsible for that waste to either clean up the sites or to reimburse the federal government for the costs.

Payments to the state program are intended to be collected over the next 25 years.

“The Climate Change Superfund Act is now law, and 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,” said state Sen. Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat who sponsored the legislation. “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.”

Under the legislation, the state Department of Environmental Conservation will be tasked with implementing the program, including identifying the companies with the highest emissions, and creating a notification and collection system for the payments. They will also have to identify the “climate change adaptive infrastructure projects” that the superfund will pay for.

Business groups and some Republican lawmakers have questioned the program’s benefits and said they remain concerned that companies forced to pay into the superfund would ultimately pass those costs to consumers.  

“It’s true, the liberal-driven climate agenda has prioritized big headlines (and) empty promises in recent years with little regard to the extraordinary costs it will put on New York households all while jeopardizing the state’s energy future with senseless mandates,” Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay, an Oswego County Republican, said in a social media post earlier this year.

Other groups have also noted the state remains reliant on fossil fuels as the transition to a fully zero-emission grid has faced numerous roadblocks.

“New Yorkers will still rely on fossil fuels to get to work and heat their homes, and in upstate New York, having the ability to do just that, with heating oil, natural gas, and propane, is the difference between life and death,” said Justin Wilcox, executive director of the advocacy group Upstate United. “This ill-advised decision is guaranteed to be quickly met with a host of lawsuits and legal challenges, further burdening New York taxpayers with the responsibility to foot the bill.” 

Cover photo: Climate change advocates had made the Climate Change Superfund Act, a program that would establish a payment mechanism for the nation’s top polluters to fund climate projects, a top priority in 2024. Photo by Molly Burke/Times Union