Exactly how and where funds get spent will be detailed in a statewide climate adaptation plan expected sometime in the next few years. According to the law, state officials will also need to identify which high-emitting companies should pay and what proportion of the costs they should bear. Amendments to the law, expected to pass sometime this month, will clarify the exact regulatory timeline. As of now, the state is “unlikely to see any money” roll out from the program before December 2028, said Horner.
The law is designed to address climate damages rather than reduce emissions at the source, said Liz Moran, a New York–based policy advocate for the nonprofit Earthjustice. While it’s possible that funding from the program could end up displacing fossil fuels by, for example, installing heat pumps in schools to provide air conditioning during extreme heat, that would be an incidental benefit rather than the project’s main purpose.
New York already has several laws on the books aimed at directly driving down emissions, including a 2019 law requiring the state to reduce economy-wide emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and an amendment to the state budget enabling the New York Power Authority to build, own, and operate clean energy projects. A statewide cap-and-invest program is also expected to kick in this year and raise $3 billion in its first year, funding everything from lower energy bills to air pollution reduction.
The climate Superfund law could also help pay for upgrades to the electrical grid to increase resilience during extreme weather, including “supporting the creation of self-sufficient clean energy microgrids.” In North Carolina, solar-battery microgrids in remote communities quickly restored power in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, pointing to the potential for distributed energy to increase reliability during storms.
New York’s law has already faced criticism from oil and gas producers and could face litigation. That’s happening now in Vermont, which passed its climate Superfund act in May: Last Monday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, the country’s largest oil and gas trade association, launched a lawsuit against Vermont’s policy, calling it an “excessive overreach by the states that want to usurp the role of federal regulators.” The result could sway other states considering climate Superfund laws, including California, Maryland, and Massachusetts.
Moran from Earthjustice described New York’s and Vermont’s laws as an overdue step to hold fossilfuel companies accountable for the climate crisis they have caused.
“The oil and gas industry blames the consumer for the climate crisis. They say, ‘You used our product. You’re at fault,’” Moran said. “Meanwhile, we’ve been locked into that product for decades longer than necessary because that same industry has spent billions of dollars lying to the public and preventing progress from happening at every level.”
