New York cannot enforce $75 billion climate ‘superfund’ law, US judge rules

By Nate Raymond and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Aug 31 (Reuters) – A federal judge ruled on Monday that New York cannot enforce a 2024 state law that sought to force fossil fuel companies to contribute $75 billion over 25 years into a fund to pay for damage caused by climate change.

Chief U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes in Syracuse, New York sided with 22 Republican state attorneys general, as well as industry groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in finding the state measure preempted by federal law.

The office of New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sannes, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, said the Clean Air Act, which gave the federal Environmental Protection Agency authority to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions, did not authorize states to adopt emissions compensation schemes such as New York’s.

She said enforcing New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act risked upsetting the balance between preventing global warming, “a project that necessarily requires national standards and global participation,” and promoting economic growth, energy production, foreign policy interests and national security.

“The Climate Act conflicts with the overriding need for a uniform rule of decision on matters influencing national energy and environmental policy, and basic interests of federalism,” she wrote.

West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, a Republican who led the states’ opposition, in a statement hailed the decision, calling the state law “a money grab by the elites in New York.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)