Vermont, under its Republican governor, Phil Scott, will become the first state in the nation to require oil companies to pay compensation for the effects of climate change. The new bill becomes law Without his signature.
The state’s Climate Superfund law is modeled after the federal Superfund law and seeks to impose penalties for emissions that occurred between 1995 and 2024, potentially totaling billions of dollars.
The bill passed the state Assembly on May 7 by a vote of 94-38, just shy of a supermajority. An earlier procedural vote had given it 100 votes, enough to override a veto, suggesting the state Assembly had the votes to override a veto from Scott’s office.
The Climate Superfund bill is the first of its kind to be passed in a state. The New York State Senate passed its own version of the bill earlier this month, but Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-New York) expressed skepticism about the bill, telling reporters earlier this week that he believes it would harm utility customers.
“I’ve never seen a corporation choose ratepayers over shareholders,” Heastie told reporters Thursday. According to WXXI“If we ask these companies to pay more, the burden will of course fall on ratepayers.”
In a statement accompanying his decision to allow the bill to become law, Governor Scott expressed concern about the logistics of moving forward with the bill on his own, noting Vermont’s low population and gross domestic product compared to states like New York and California.
He also said the legislation allocates $600,000 to analyze how the program works and how it could be defended in court. [us] For success.”
But, he wrote, “I understand the desire for funds to mitigate the impacts of climate change, which are damaging to our state in so many ways, and I also believe that the Attorney General [Charity] Clark and the Treasurer [Mike] “Mr. Pieciak supports this policy and has committed to the necessary work. I am also reassured that the Natural Resources Agency is required to report to Congress in January 2025 on the feasibility of this effort, allowing us to reevaluate our own approach.”
Vermont experienced devastating flooding last summer, with parts of the state receiving more than nine inches of rain. Climate change is associated with more intense weather events, especially in areas less prepared for their effects, such as the extreme cold in Texas in 2021 and record heat in parts of the Pacific Northwest where air conditioning is not widespread.
A spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, a major oil and natural gas industry trade group, denounced the decision in a statement.
“These punitive new fees are yet another step in a coordinated campaign to undermine America’s energy advantage and the economic and national security benefits it brings,” the groups wrote. “Rather than working with industry to advance our shared goal of a low-carbon future, state lawmakers have chosen to pass a bill crafted by activists to serve their own interests.”
