{"id":3124,"date":"2026-02-17T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/?p=3124"},"modified":"2026-04-09T09:33:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T09:33:35","slug":"states-push-climate-superfund-bills-despite-trumps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/?p=3124","title":{"rendered":"States push climate superfund bills despite Trump\u2019s\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Still, lawmakers and advocates behind these bills believe that the law backs them\u00a0up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Climate superfund laws are modeled on the federal Superfund program, which was established in 1980<\/span> to hold corporations financially accountable for cleaning up soil contamination they had caused. The program was challenged repeatedly, but courts upheld the law time and again \u2014 a\u00a0precedent that is encouraging to proponents of climate superfund legislation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201c<\/span>You can see why this law was attractive when thinking about greenhouse gas emissions and climate,\u201d said Kirt Mayland, a\u00a0visiting professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School. \u200b\u201c<\/span>The hope is that courts will provide the same protection as they did for the conventional Superfund.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The strength of this approach, he said, is that the laws and bills do not target federally regulated emissions, despite opponents\u2019 claims. Climate superfund bills focus not on what\u2019s happening in the atmosphere but rather on what\u2019s happening on the ground: observably flooded towns and storm-damaged businesses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Opponents have played up concerns that it would be difficult to accurately quantify the contributions greenhouse gases make to climate change and then properly allocate responsibility among multiple parties. Supporters, however, say there are ways to do just\u00a0that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Carbon Majors Database is a\u00a0collection of data about the historic emissions of 178<\/span> of the world\u2019s largest oil, gas, coal, and cement producers, including private and public companies as well as entire countries. Using this information, the growing field of attribution science can connect emissions to climate impacts and even, in some cases, to specific storms, heat waves, or other extreme weather events, said Carly Phillips, a\u00a0research scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201c<\/span>The science is really robust around the magnitude and scope of emissions that can be traced,\u201d she said. \u200b\u201c<\/span>It really provides a\u00a0template to answer those kinds of questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Phillips said that she would welcome engagement and dialogue around the science, but that she is not hearing any good-faith skepticism from opponents. Instead, she sees only a\u00a0wholesale rejection of attribution science, aimed, she believes, at delaying climate action as long as possible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The lawsuits targeting New York and Vermont will take some time to resolve, and are likely to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court, Mayland said. In the meantime, neither state has yet assessed any charges under the laws. Still, continuing to push these new bills, even in the face of federal and industry hostility, could increase their eventual chances of success, proponents say.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Rhode Island, where climate superfund legislation has been introduced for a\u00a0second year in a\u00a0row, lawmakers are learning more about how the proposal works, and the idea is gaining support, Boylan said. Ongoing conversations about the idea will help pave the way for adoption when some of the legal questions are resolved, said Connecticut state Rep. Steve Winter, a\u00a0Democrat who plans to support his state\u2019s climate superfund bill.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201c<\/span>There\u2019s no doubt that legal challenges to Vermont and New York\u2019s legislation create a\u00a0cloud of uncertainty, but I\u00a0don\u2019t think that should stop us from advancing the public conversation,\u201d he said. \u200b\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s that important.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Still, lawmakers and advocates behind these bills believe that the law backs them\u00a0up. Climate superfund laws are modeled on the federal Superfund program, which was established in 1980 to hold corporations financially accountable for cleaning up soil contamination they had caused. The program was challenged repeatedly, but courts upheld the law time and again \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3126,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124\/revisions\/3126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}