Vermont’s bill wants to charge big oil for climate change damage, here’s how to do it

(WASHINGTON) – In a groundbreaking move to hold companies accountable for environmental damage, Vermont is poised to make oil and gas giants spend billions to clean up climate change.

Vermont’s Climate Superfund Act, which runs parallel to the Environmental Protection Agency’s superfund program, would require companies with high emissions — such as ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron — to be financially responsible for some of the costs of extreme weather damage in the state.

“For decades, fossil fuel companies have knowingly destroyed our planet for short-term profit,” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont told ABC News.

If approved, companies responsible for more than a billion tons of greenhouse gas pollution in the state would make payments calculated based on each company’s emissions between 1995 and 2024, under the legislation.

The bill would use data from the Carbon Majors database, which analyzes historical production data from 122 of the world’s largest oil, gas, coal and cement producers, to litigate the climate liability claims.

The Vermont Natural Resources Agency would then allocate funding for the Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program Fund to improve infrastructure, weatherproof public buildings and address the health impacts of climate change, the bill said.

The groundbreaking measure would make Vermont the first state in the country to pass such a bill, with New York, California, Maryland and Massachusetts seeking to pass similar policies.

“I am proud that Vermont will go further than any other state in forcing the fossil fuel industry to pay for the destruction caused by the climate change crisis,” Sanders said.

The bill marks a bipartisan victory and passed overwhelmingly in both the Vermont Senate and House. It goes to Republican Governor Phil Scott’s desk to sign or veto.

If vetoed, the Vermont General Assembly is prepared to reconvene next month to consider an override vote, according to Vermont Public.

Supporters of the bill say the Superfund Act is the first legal step in a decades-long environmental crusade to hold polluting companies accountable for harmful waste.

“This effort boils down to a simple lesson we all learn as children: If you make a mess, you have to clean it up,” Elena Mihaly, vice president of the Vermont chapter of the Conservation Law Foundation, told ABC News.

In July 2023, catastrophic flooding inundated communities across Vermont, killing two people, decimating bridges and roads and causing more than a billion dollars in property damage, according to Mihaly.

“Last year’s devastating floods showed how vulnerable Vermonters are to the climate chaos caused by the fossil fuel industry,” Mihaly said, adding: “It is Vermonters who are bearing the full brunt of that chaos on our physical, mental and financial well-being. “

Opponents of the bill warn that the legislation would pit the state against billion-dollar corporations in a legal battle that could never leave the courtroom.

“The decision was made to go to war with companies that probably have as many lawyers as we citizens,” Vermont Senator Russ Ingalls, who cast one of three votes against the bill, told ABC News, adding: “We will be crushed like an insect.”

Ingalls claims that the Superfund Act would “cause our property taxes to increase by almost 15%,” arguing that the potential “millions” spent on lawsuits could be better spent.

A spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industries, argued that the Superfund Act would “stifle” companies’ progress in creating “low-carbon solutions.”

“The U.S. natural gas and oil industry is working to address climate change and build a lower-carbon future while meeting the world’s growing energy needs,” API’s Scott Lauermann told ABC News.

“This proposal is nothing more than an unnecessary new fee on American energy that would only delay the innovative progress underway to accelerate low-carbon solutions while serving the energy communities that need them,” Lauermann said.

Environmental experts fear that promises of a sustainable future may not go far enough as extreme weather damage has displaced communities and a state scrambles to respond.

“The reality is that the climate crisis is here,” Ben Edgerly Walsh, climate and energy program director for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, told ABC News. “It’s costing even tiny Vermont hundreds of millions of dollars – so we need to do what’s right for our citizens and invest more in resilience and adaptation.”

Infrastructure projects funded by companies include flood protection, such as improving stormwater drainage systems, making defensive upgrades to roads, bridges, rail and transit systems, modernizing sewage treatment plants and other infrastructure locations vulnerable to flooding and more , according to the bill.

Mihaly believes that “the Climate Super Fund Act is a rational, legal and necessary means to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for paying its fair share of those burdens.”

“The global fossil fuel industry has helped create a mess in Vermont – and it’s time for them to help clean it up,” Mihaly said.

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