NY Gov. Hochul just signed a bill forcing fossil fuel companies to pay seventy five billion dollars for damaging the climate in New York state. This does not bode well for those companies. If they kiss the ring and pay the money, what stops the state from demanding yearly payments every year? If successful, how many other states will demand huge payments? I see only one viable solution. Move your companies out of New York.
Quit producing electricity, stop supplying gas stations with gasoline, and move all companies that manufacture any petroleum products. Then New York will be free from Climate change altogether.Throw in some DEI and a vibrant chorus of Kumbaya and they don’t mind paying NYC’s $2,500 yearly congestion fee. But, better yet, have the Supreme Court strike down the bill as unconstitutional and ridiculous.
Governor Hochul said:
“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. 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.”
Democrat Senator Liz Krueger and Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz wrote:
“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.”
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL“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.”
Krueger continued:
“And there’s no question that those consequences are here, and they are serious. 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.”
Reuters reported:
New York state will fine fossil fuel companies a total of $75 billion over the next 25 years to pay for damage caused to the climate under a bill Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law on Thursday.
The law is intended to shift some of the recovery and adaptation costs of climate change from individual taxpayers to oil, gas and coal companies that the law says are liable. The money raised will be spent on mitigating the impacts of climate change, including adapting roads, transit, water and sewage systems, buildings and other infrastructure.
Fossil fuel companies will be fined based on the amount of greenhouse gases they released into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2018, to be paid into a Climate Superfund beginning in 2028. It will apply to any company that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation determines is responsible for more than 1 billion tons of global greenhouse gas emissions.
New York becomes the second state to pass such a law after Vermont passed its own version this summer. The laws are modeled after existing state and federal superfund laws that require polluters to pay to clean up toxic waste.
