ICYMI: Krueger and Dinowitz to Hochul: Climate Change Superfund will Save New Yorkers $$ W/out Gutting CLCPA

ALBANY, NY (04/04/2023) (readMedia)-- Governor Hochul's effort to force into the state budget a plan to weaken New York States's accounting of methane emissions would gut New York's nation-leading efforts to fight climate change. In response to claims from the Hochul administration that this plan is necessary to save New Yorkers money, Climate Change Superfund Act (S.2129/A3351) sponsors Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Senator Liz Krueger issued the following statement:

"Governor Hochul's excuse that New York needs to gut its nation-leading climate law in order to save New Yorkers money is flat-out wrong, especially when there's a real solution to this problem right in front of her. The Climate Change Superfund Act would put Big Oil on the hook for the state's climate costs instead of everyday New Yorkers - it would save the state money while getting us the resources we need to actually confront the climate catastrophe. Saving money by ignoring what we need to do to save civilization won't work out for us in the end, but rejecting the governor's plan and putting the Climate Change Superfund Act in the budget will."

Background

The Climate Change Superfund Act is first-in-the-nation legislation to put the biggest multinational fossil fuel companies, which are still driving the climate crisis, on the hook for climate damages and resiliency costs. Currently, New York taxpayers and businesses are footing the bill for this mess. The legislation is modeled on the existing toxics superfund law (which deals with land and drinking water contamination) that makes polluters financially responsible for the environmental damages that they have caused. These costs wouldn't fall back on consumers, according to an analysis from the think tank Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU Law.

2022 was a record profit year for big oil, with the top companies' combined profits reaching an astounding $376 billion. Those record profits allowed them to deliver unprecedented returns to shareholders while doing little to address the climate crisis they knew was coming, while they did all they could to undermine climate action. Starting in the 1970s, scientists working for Exxon made "remarkably accurate projections of just how much burning fossil fuels would warm the planet." Yet for years, "the oil giant publicly cast doubt on climate science, and cautioned against any drastic move away from burning fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change."

Big Oil is at fault for climate change, and it can certainly afford the costs - which are uniquely necessary - and expensive - in New York. A new report from Rebuild by Design, Atlas of Disaster: New York State, identifies the impacts of recent climate disasters across New York State at the county level, for the years 2011-2021. The data shows that every single county in New York has experienced a federal climate disaster between 2011-2021, with 16 having five or more disasters during that time. In that decade, more than 100 New Yorkers died as a result of climate-driven disasters. In 2022 that number grew exponentially when Winter Storm Elliot in Buffalo killed at least 47 people.

In a separate report, Rebuild by Design estimated that the climate costs to New York could be $55 billion by the end of this decade. Furthermore, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated that it would cost $52 billion to protect NY Harbor alone. And while storms get worse, sea levels are rising and groundwater poses a higher risk of flooding - and we don't even know how much yet. Clearly, New York is facing staggering – and growing – climate costs.

The Climate Change Superfund Act isn't just necessary – it's popular. According to a poll from Data for Progress, 89% of New Yorkers support fossil fuel companies covering at least some of the cost for climate damages. 200+ groups including key labor unions such as DC37 sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Heastie urging them to include the bill in their one house budgets. In their letter, the groups write that the fossil fuel industry should be subject to the state's climate costs since their "decisions led to global warming; justice requires that they-not New York's other taxpayers-be financially responsible for the tragically enormous climate crisis impacts that they created."