Air Date: Week of March 7, 2025

Flash flooding in Flatbush, Brooklyn in September 2023. (Photo: Wil540 art, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

To help cover the rising costs of climate impacts like extreme floods and sea level rise, New York State has enacted a law that asks major fossil fuel companies to pay up, based on their historic sales of coal, gas and oil. Anne Louise Rabe is the former Environmental Policy Director at NY-PIRG, The New York Public Interest Research Group, and joins Host Aynsley O’Neill to explain how the revenues would fund climate adaptation and resilience.

Transcript

CURWOOD: From PRX and the Jennifer and Ted Stanley Studios at the University of Massachusetts Boston, this is Living on Earth. I’m Steve Curwood.

O’NEILL: And I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

One of the most destructive consequences of a warming planet is the increased moisture a warmer atmosphere can hold, leading to extreme floods like those that hit New York in September 2024.

NEWS ANCHOR: This morning New Yorkers drying out after a dangerous deluge left many areas underwater from record breaking rain. Over the last 24 hours unrelenting rain turning roads into rivers. Cars stranded as people flee for dry ground and millions of New Yorkers urged to shelter in place.

O’NEILL: As the climate crisis intensifies, extreme events like these are expected to become more frequent, at a huge cleanup cost to governments. To help cover this rising bill, New York State has passed a new “Climate Change Superfund Law” that asks major fossil fuel companies to pay up, based on their historic sales of coal, gas and oil.
Joining us now to discuss is Anne Louise Rabe, the former Environmental Policy Director at NY-PIRG, the New York Public Interest Research Group. Welcome to Living on Earth, Anne!

RABE: Thanks.

O'NEILL: So, what is the New York Climate Superfund law? And if I have this right, it's only really the second of its kind behind a similar law in Vermont. How do the two compare as well?

RABE: Well, the New York Climate Change Superfund Act is a precedent setting law, and it would create a fee on big greenhouse gas emitters, big oil and gas companies who are making tremendous profits. They would be sharing a fee that would create $3 billion a year for three projects from the climate crisis: repair, resilience and community protection programs. The New York law is similar to the Vermont law, which passed first but the New York law is bigger and better, we feel. It has a specific amount, 3 billion a year, whereas the Vermont law is having a state study done to assess the amount and it also has 35% of the 3 billion, or 1 billion a year for 25 years in a row, going just to disadvantaged communities for repair, resilience and community protection programs.

O'NEILL: And now this takes its cues from the federal Superfund law from 1980 which requires companies to pay for the cleanup of toxic waste brought by incidents like chemical spills. How did we get from that 1980 law to this, the climate change Superfund act?

RABE: Well, we are in the same situation we were back in 1980. We were finding massive hazardous waste dumps, and the industries that created them were refusing to pay for the cleanup. So, we, as in Congress, quickly came up with a polluter pay fee, which is constitutionally supported, a polluter pay fee so that the super fund would pay for the cleanup of toxic waste dumps, where there's companies that are refusing and then they're sued in court or whether the company is bankrupt. Same concept here, except it's the pollution in the air from the past. Greenhouse gas emissions that were emitted in the past have now created the horrible climate crisis of today. So, we're going back in time to those polluters and saying, time to pay up. You know, if you generate over a billion tons of greenhouse gasses over 20-year period, you've got to pay part of that 3 billion.

O'NEILL: And what are New Yorkers seeing in terms of climate change as in, how is it affecting the state, both in terms of climate and environment, but also in terms of its financial or social or the psychological effects?

RABE: It's tremendously impacting New Yorkers in many, many ways. Financially, taxpayers are having to pay over $2 billion a year for repair resilience and protection programs. For instance, protection from flash floods in Queens the Buffalo Blizzard, 47 people were killed two years ago in Buffalo. The Queens flooding, people died in their basement apartments of flash flooding. So, there's human suffering is tragic. The money, over $2 billion a year, we've calculated, looking at the governor's news releases, is being paid by taxpayers for resilience and repair programs when it should be paid for by polluters. And psychologically you know, people are living in fear. People in the five boroughs of New York City, every time it rains, they're fearful that there's going to be another flood. So, it's really a traumatic situation going on, the climate crisis in New York state.

O'NEILL: Now this law has a very important environmental justice component. If I have this right, it requires 35% of the funds to go to disadvantaged communities. Can you walk us through some of the boroughs or municipalities across the state of New York that are going to really need this kind of support and funding.

RABE: Sure. First, I want to put it in perspective in terms of what we're facing in New York right now, our Army Corps of Engineers has told us we need $52 billion for the Lower East Side of New York City to build sea walls. On Long Island, you know, an island in terms of the extreme weather impacts that are happening more and more every year there's estimate of $100 billion as needed. And then state over the next 25 years, the Senate Finance Committee has estimated $500 billion is needed for repair, resilience and protection programs. We're talking about raising $75 billion over 25 years, and one-third of that is going to go to disadvantaged communities. For instance, Queens, the borough that is constantly dealing with flash floods, would get $130 million estimated for 25 years in a row. Erie County, where the Buffalo Blizzard will shut down the water treatment facility, it needs to be upgraded and resilient they would receive $41 million for 25 years in a row. So that's what climate superfund would pay for. It also pays for health plans for people who have increased asthma because of air pollution.

right now: @billmckibben & dozens of activists are gathered outside governor kathy hochul's office calling on her to pass the Climate Superfund Act, which would force big oil to pay for climate action.

"new yorkers are generous, but new yorkers are not suckers," mckibben said pic.twitter.com/faSKCjiy4a

— ???????????????????????? ???????????????? (@dharnanoor) September 24, 2024

O'NEILL: And on top of that, there's also going to be some impacts in terms of job creation. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

RABE: Yes, it's a tremendous, tremendous green jobs program. For instance, we need to make our bridges, our over hundreds of bridges in New York State, resilient, so that they don't break down when there's an extreme weather situation. And that's 65 jobs per bridge at $7 million a bridge. So that's tremendous that we're talking hundreds of thousands of jobs in terms of resilience upgrades, in terms of community protection programs, cooling centers during the extreme heat. You know we need to build those cooling centers. So, it's a huge job creation program.

O'NEILL: Well with this bill requiring the fossil fuel companies to pay up, to what extent is that bill going to eventually make its way to the consumer?

RABE: It will not touch the consumer in terms of price increases. We've had many economists review formula on terms of the fee structure, and again, it's for past greenhouse gas emissions. It will not impact today's cost of production. So, there should be no shifting of cost to consumers, and that also was confirmed by a Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz from Columbia University. There should be no price increases, because it's nothing to do with future production costs, it's for the past.

O'NEILL: And Anne, what kind of response are you seeing here?

RABE: Well, there's an overwhelming response from the environmental, environmental justice, faith, labor, local government officials, just a huge, big tent of organizations that push for this bill. We passed it only in two and a half years, which is pretty big for $75 million Climate Superfund Program, pretty, pretty good.

O'NEILL: Wow.

RABE: At the last minute, Governor Hochul was not sure whether she was going to sign it or not. And we had over 200 environmental leaders, including elders and youth from Fridays for the Future and the Third Act, Bill Mckibben's group, have a three day teach in and sit in.

O'NEILL: Wow.

RABE: Calling on the governor to sign the bill into law. She did on December 26th so this was a very robust and very strong campaign. The fossil fuel industry of course, the Business Council, the American Petroleum Institute, constantly opposing it and complaining, but you know, we all learn in kindergarten, if you make a mess, you have to clean it up. And we're asking them to pay their fair share, not the whole bill, which is about 10 to 15 billion a year we need in New York, we're asking them to pay 3 billion.

O'NEILL: So, Anne, what do you see as the future of polluter pay laws like this, the Climate Change Superfund Act?

RABE: This climate Superfund Act is the second law of the land but there are up to 10 other states that are introducing or have introduced climate superfund bills, and we are looking at a state by state building block approach over the next four years under President Trump's administration, the states are taking the lead, as they did with state super fund, as they've done with pesticide and other environmental laws. The states are our innovators. They're our laboratories. You know, many, many states in the future are going to see that it's totally unfair for the taxpayers to be paying for the billions of dollars in climate damage repair, climate resilience programs and community protection programs, and local government is probably the first constituency that realizes this. They're using up their rainy-day funds. Local governments, counties and cities across the land are having to deal with tremendous repair costs after every extreme weather storm, and they then have to pass it on to the taxpayers and that's just blatantly not fair. So, climate super fund, it's the wave of the future, we're going to have a federal law eventually, because we need one, and because polluters should pay their fair share.

O'NEILL: Anne Rabe is the former environmental policy director at the New York Public Interest Research Group. Anne, thank you so much for joining me today.

RABE: Thank you Aynsley, I appreciate being on Living on Earth.

 

Links

Inside Climate News | “New York Climate Superfund Becomes Law”

Access the NY State Climate Change Superfund Act