New York imposes $75B climate fine
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has now implemented the Climate Change Superfund Act that releases a bill of $75 billion over the next 25 years from large fossil fuel companies to fix New York’s climate damages.
The regulation aims at oil, gas and coal sector enterprises which produced high levels of greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2018.Business entities that emitted more than one billion tons of global greenhouse gas emissions through this period will required to pay into the fund expected to be $3 billion annually.
This cash will be used for the funding of climate change mitigation and infrastructure adaptation initiatives around New York. This involves upgrading other facilities such as roads, rail, water, and sewage treatment works and other structures to increase resilience to the impact of climate change.
This measure designed as the extension of the superfund laws of polluters pays for toxic wastes shifts the burden of adaption costs to the taxpayers to the climate offenders responsible for the climate problem. New York is the second state in the country after Vermont to pass such a law.
State Senator Liz Krueger, who co-sponsored the law, underlined the necessity of holding major polluters accountable, saying, “New York has fired a shot that will be heard round the world: “Some of the greatest polluters will be forced to take the hit,” he added.
The energy firms are expected to come out strongly against the bill saying that it infringes the federal laws.
However, the oil sector through the American Petroleum Institute has described the proposal as stiff. There are also measures for assigning blame and levying penalties; collection is to start in the year 2028.
