In May 2024, Vermont enacted entirely unprecedented legislation that attempts to mitigate climate-charged disaster events and associated financial fallout inflicted on Vermont residents.
Vermont climate superfund legislation, followed seven months later by New York (and presently pursued by at least ten other states), is in response to climate-charged disaster events that over the ten- yr period ending in ’25 cost Vermonters upwards of ~$2 billion. The legislation, premised on a deeply entrenched polluter pay principle, e.g., modeled after the federal toxic waste Superfund program, requires so called carbon majors, here oil and gas companies, to meet their unpaid, externalized costs by making compensatory payments. New York law is targeting a $75 billion fund. These dedicated funds will generally finance climate adaptation and infrastructure resiliency. Not surprisingly, these laws face of aggressive legal challenges by among others the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, West Virginia-led state attorneys general and the Trump administration that has filed federal lawsuits against both VT and NY. Among numerous related interviews, listeners will recall I discussed advances in attribution science with Stanford’s Chris Callahan in May 2025.
Information re: Vermont’s Climate Superfund Act is at: https://climatechange.vermont.gov/climate-superfund.
Information re: Vermont’s Conservation Law Foundation is at: https://www.clf.org/serving-new-england/vermont/.
(Apologies to Ms. Mihaly, at one point I call her Emily!?!)
