A federal courtroom in Syracuse was the setting for a confrontation between the state and oil and coal companies over the pollution causing climate change.
Thursday’s hearing had a simple point. The oil and coal companies, joined by 22 states, want New York’s new Climate Superfund law killed in its cradle. The Climate Superfund is modeled after the Superfund efforts that continue to clean up land polluted by companies. It would force oil and coal companies to give the state $75 billion over 25 years to mitigate the harm done from climate change caused by emissions from burning oil and coal.
Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group said that’s only fair.
"Recent estimate on a report came out about a week ago said about half a trillion dollars to New Yorkers' tax bills is gonna be attributable to climate damages," Horner said. "The legislation, it was approved by both houses and the governor signed it in 2024, says that the oil companies should kick in. They're fabulously profitable."
The big coal state of West Virginia, a lawyer for the fuel industry and a lawyer for the Trump administration all argued that a prior case in New York City established that the state can’t do this because the federal government is already involved in regulating emissions and because many of the fuel companies are multinational corporations, which makes regulating them a form of foreign relations, which only the federal government can do.
U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes seemed skeptical of the state’s argument that this case is not like the New York City case. If she finds the two cases cover the same ground, she could find the entire Climate Superfund unconstitutional — leaving the state to find some other way to shift some of the costs of climate change away from taxpayers. Sannes said she would issue a written decision but offered no clues as to when.