{"id":3223,"date":"2026-04-07T03:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T03:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/?p=3223"},"modified":"2026-04-10T02:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T02:55:07","slug":"coming-to-you-from-big-oil-profits-the-vermont-climate-superfund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatevdo.com\/?p=3223","title":{"rendered":"Coming To You From Big Oil Profits: The Vermont Climate Superfund"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Passed in May 2024, the Vermont Climate Superfund Act allows the state to recover financial damages from the impacts of climate change to Vermont caused by the fossil fuel industry. These funds are targeted for climate adaption projects.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, in September 2025, the Trump administration filed suit in federal district court in Vermont, asking a judge to strike down the Vermont law.<\/p>\n

In March 2026 (oh, how slowly the US court system works<\/em>), opponents argued that Vermont overstepped its authority in passing the law to begin with. In a legal brief brimming with hyperbode, the complaint urged the court to \u201cend Vermont\u2019s lawless experiment\u201d and argued that state law \u201cclashes with US foreign policy\u201d and \u201cdirectly regulates conduct outside Vermont that bears no discernible connection to the state.\u201d It went on to describe the Vermont legislation as \u201can attack on the supremacy of federal law that threatens the balance of power between the national government and the states.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vermont is fighting back against what Paul Heintz of the Boston Globe<\/em> calls \u201ca barrage of legal actions from the energy industry and its allies over the state law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vermont needs the money from the climate Superfund so it can harden infrastructure and buy out vulnerable properties. Remember the raging storms two summers ago that ripped Vermont homes from their riverside acreage and caked downtown Montpelier in mud? Vermont\u2019s roads, bridges, downtowns, and farms have endured more than $1 billion in damage from several years of flooding after intense storms, and the state ranks high among all others with federal disaster declarations caused by extreme weather.<\/p>\n

Kate Sinding Daly, senior vice president for law and policy at Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), says that this law can help build Vermont to be more prepared for storms and their damage.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFossil fuel companies and their allies are trying to avoid responsibility, challenging a law that will make them pay their fair share of costs to adapt to a changing climate. States have every right to protect their residents, and Vermonters shouldn\u2019t be left holding the entire bill to guard ourselves against the destruction caused by severe storms, flooding, and the host of other impacts from our warming planet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Due to infrastructure improvements, future extreme storms may be less damaging if the Climate Superfund Act takes force. And no longer would Vermont citizens find themselves holding the invoices for extreme weather repairs: Big Oil would be held accountable. Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at Vermont Law & Graduate School, told the Globe<\/em> that the Vermont Climate Superfund laws make perfect sense from a legal standpoint. \u201cThere isn\u2019t anything more basic than if your product causes harm, you\u2019re liable,\u201d he said. \u201cPeriod.\u201d<\/p>\n

CLF and Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT) defended Vermont\u2019s groundbreaking climate superfund law during the hearing at the US District Court in Rutland. The law is being challenged by the US, the American Petroleum Institute, the US Chamber of Commerce, and a coalition of 24 Republican-led states\u2019 attorneys general.<\/p>\n

The US federal government is not amused or convinced by Vermont\u2019s Climate Superfund.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is not about Vermont\u2019s ability to raise revenue or protect the health and welfare of its residents,\u201d said Riley Walters, an attorney for the US Department of Justice. \u201cIt\u2019s about Vermont\u2019s attempt to subject global energy production and activity to Vermont law, which brazenly disregards the constitutional division of power in the federal government and the states.\u201d<\/p>\n

A national poll released by the Make Polluters Pay campaign, however, shows overwhelming bipartisan support for requiring oil and gas companies to pay their fair share of climate damage costs, with 77% of likely voters backing climate Superfund legislation. Disasters are becoming more frequent and are driving up costs that average people are forced to bear. Overall, voters are already feeling the effects of climate change, expect costs to rise, and believe oil and gas companies should pay their fair share<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These results and more common experiences with extreme weather align with broader perceptions of a shifting climate and how the fossil fuel industry needs to be held accountable.<\/p>\n

Mahyar Sorour, director of the Beyond Fossil Fuels policy at the Sierra Club, reiterates<\/a> the importance of why fossil fuel companies need to take responsibility for their product emissions.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCommunities have borne the responsibility of dealing with the mess left by polluting fossil fuel industries for too long. From rising energy and health care costs from pollution, to cleaning up orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells, to picking up the pieces after climate catastrophes, taxpayers foot the bill while oil and gas CEOs get rich from high energy prices and government handouts. Oil and gas companies must be held accountable for their actions and made to pay their fair share. It\u2019s time to make polluters pay!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

States Fight Back against Fossil Fuel Giants<\/h3>\n

Vermont is not the only state seeking damages from fossil fuels companies to pay for the effects of climate change. Legal challenges to climate Superfunds are also taking place in New York and Colorado as well as eight other states<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By legislating a Superfund, New York will soon force<\/a> major oil and gas companies to pay up for mounting climate damages caused by the burning of their products over the last two decades. Their Climate Change Superfund Act is modeled on the existing State and Federal Superfund law (which requires polluters to fund toxic waste dump cleanups) by making Big Oil climate polluters financially responsible for the environmental damages that they have caused.<\/p>\n

The top Big Oil companies would be required to pay a combined $3 billion annually, every year, for 25 years to New York. State legislators reminded their constituents that the $3 billion number represents a fraction of the annual profits from the oil and gas industry, where the top three domestic producers made a combined $85.6 billion in profits in 2023 alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome of the Boulder case may have an important bearing on the state superfund laws,\u201d Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School\u2019s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, explained to the Globe<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Other Examples of Superfund Mitigation<\/h3>\n

The Climate Superfund laws borrow their names from the long-running federal program that requires companies to pay to clean up industrial sites they polluted. The genesis is a 1980 federal Superfund program established to mitigate toxic pollution spurred by the story of Love Canal, a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, NY, that has since become symbolic of corporate environmental destruction.<\/p>\n

There are several more recent examples of Superfund actions.<\/p>\n

A massive Chevron Questa molybdenum mine in New Mexico was an epic environmental disaster<\/a> until it closed in 2014 , now an intricate, decades-long remediation effort is under way to alleviate pollution in its wake. The mine area covers three square miles plus another 1.5 square miles for disposal of tailings \u2014\u00a0 the waste that remains after molybdenum was extracted from the ore. Plans include producing green hydrogen at the site, with the ultimate goal of enabling the local utility to fill a critical storage gap in its renewable energy profile. The site has been under remediation through the Superfund program administered by the US Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n

The Coventry Landfill Solar project<\/a> in Rhode Island has been completed. It features a 5.740 MW solar array. The capacity of the new solar power system is 5.741 MW DC, which will produce 7,725,000 kWhs in one year. Several factors contributed to the landfill\u2019s conversion to solar energy. The remediation plan, approved by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, included provisions for future solar deployment. The landfill was capped in 2020 using WatershedGeo\u00ae ClosureTurf\u00ae, which further facilitated efficient solar installation. As a result of these attributes, the solar project was finally completed by the end of 2025.<\/p>\n

Otis Air National Guard Base is an installation located within Joint Base Cape Cod, a military training facility on the western portion of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts. Military operations starting in the late 1930s included disposal of hazardous materials. Fuels, motor oils, cleaning solvents, and associated wastes were dumped on the property via landfills, dry wells, sumps, and the sewage treatment plant. Although much of the surrounding area is designated as a Superfund site<\/a>, the future of Otis seems uncertain. That\u2019s because, while contractors are still cleaning up and monitoring environmental contamination from PFAS and military munitions at Joint Base Cape Cod, expanding the scope of work is unlikely due to a lack of money.<\/p>\n

Final Thoughts about Climate Superfund Legislation<\/h3>\n

Our inimitable CleanTechnica<\/em> writer, Steve Hanley, wrote a while back about the great state of Montana<\/a> and Republican pride there in its fossil fuels industry. \u201cThanks in large measure to decades of pollution left behind by Anaconda Copper and the fossil fuel industry,\u201d Steve wrote, Montana \u201chas the most toxic Superfund sites of any state in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a group of young people (ie. \u201cA bunch of tree-hugging young hippies infected with a woke mind virus\u201d) sued Montana in Held vs. Montana, they claimed the state had failed to abide by \u201cthe clear and unequivocal language in the state Constitution\u201d that says the citizens of Montana are entitled to a \u201cclean and healthful environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amazingly, the Montana state court ruled in favor of the young plaintiffs. \u201cRepublicans had a fit,\u201d Steve expressed indignantly. \u201cWhen the state Supreme Court upheld the decision last December, they lost their minds. They immediately set about passing a raft of new legislation designed to make absolutely certain that businesses in Montana could go right on pouring pollutants into the state\u2019s air, water, and land regardless of what some silly old constitution might say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putting the sarcasm aside, it is absolutely true that many climate entrepreneurs<\/a> are fighting back against states like Vermont that are trying to make polluters pay up for their environmentally-destructive actions. The climate Superful litigation will continue to make headlines for a long, long time \u2014 as long as Big Oil continues to reap vast profits and can pay seemingly endless streams of cash to their teams of lawyers.<\/p>\n

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