How New York State is Defying Donald Trump's Plans to Roll Back Climate Action

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a landmark climate law last week, showing how states can continue to hold polluters accountable even as President-elect Donald Trump rolls back environmental protections.

New York State's Climate Change Superfund Act will require the largest multinational oil and gas companies to contribute to a fund that will be used for infrastructure projects intended to protect New York residents from increasing climate disasters. more dangerous ones like storms and sea level rise.

New York fired a shot that will go around the world

Trump will soon return to power and is expected to dismantle existing climate policies and gut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), after openly disparaging clean energy and federal environmental regulations on the campaign trail. So for at least the next four years, Americans will have to rely on local and state efforts like this to combat the fossil fuel pollution that is driving climate change.

New York has fired a shot that will be heard around the world: Companies most responsible for the climate crisis will be held accountable, state Sen. Liz Krueger said in a statement after Hochul signed the law on the Superfund for climate change.

Kruegers' office expects the law to generate $75 billion over the next 25 years. But immediately, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will first have to come up with guidelines for how the fund will operate. This includes rules for who must pay into the fund, how the state raises the money and what types of infrastructure projects the fund will support. The law will apply to fossil fuel companies historically responsible for more than 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions. And at least 35 percent of the fund's profits are supposed to benefit disadvantaged communities.

The plan draws loosely on state and federal laws that have been in place for decades to hold companies accountable for the toxic waste sites they leave behind. But instead of dedicating funds to cleaning up hazardous substances at old industrial sites, New York's new law would fund resiliency projects such as upgrading stormwater drainage systems.

New York taxpayers bore 100% of climate costs. Now, big oil companies will pay for much of the damage they helped cause, Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), said in a press release.

The Climate Change Superfund Act is expected to reduce New Yorkers' future tax burden by $3 billion each year, according to NYPIRG. Extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change are expected to cost New York half a trillion dollars in preparedness and recovery efforts by 2050, according to Kreugers' office.

Joe Biden has set a goal of reducing US greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2030 compared to 2005 pollution levels, as part of the country's commitment towards the Paris climate agreement. He also signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive spending package that set aside $369 billion for climate action and clean energy technologies.

Trump, for his part, says he will withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement again (which he briefly did during his first term before Biden recommitted the United States to the 'agreement). The president-elect also said he would cancel all unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. He rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations when he was previous president and says his pick for the Environmental Protection Agency this time around will once again ensure swift deregulatory decisions within the agency.

Still, state laws can make up some of the ground lost in the fight against climate change. New York State's Climate Superfund Act will, of course, have to survive any legal challenge. But this isn't the first time the state has developed ambitious environmental plans while dealing with Trump's hostility toward climate action. In 2019, New York State passed its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. That put the state on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030, although progress has been slow since then.

New York's latest response to looming environmental deregulation is just part of a broader trend that marked the first Trump presidency and is poised to become part of the second. Earlier this year, Vermont passed its own Climate Superfund law. Similar legislation has also been introduced in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Congress, according to the nonprofit Food & Water Watch.

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