New York’s $75 Billion Climate Tab

New York just handed fossil fuel companies a $75 billion bill, payable over the next 25 years, for their part in trashing the planet. Governor Kathy Hochul signed the law Thursday, making New York the second state to adopt such a scheme, hot on the heels of Vermont. Looks like Big Oil’s free ride is officially over… in parts of the Northeast.

The law shifts the financial burden of climate adaptation off taxpayers and squarely onto oil, gas, and coal companies deemed responsible for more than a billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Think ExxonMobil and friends, who raked in over $1 trillion in profits since 2021 and have apparently been sitting on decades of climate science while cashing checks.

Fossil fuel giants will pay into a Climate Superfund starting in 2028, with penalties based on emissions between 2000 and 2018. The cash will go toward weather-proofing roads, upgrading water and sewage systems, and making other infrastructure less apocalypse-prone.

The logic? If you break it, you buy it or at least help rebuild it. Climate repair and adaptation could cost New York over $500 billion by 2050, so $75 billion is more like a down payment.
Naturally, energy companies are planning to fight this in court, arguing that the law clashes with federal rules. Their lawyers are probably already drafting briefs about states overstepping their jurisdiction while quietly Googling Vermont’s precedent.