The state of New Jersey is looking to follow in Vermont’s footsteps and introduce a fee on oil and gas companies that would go to a climate superfund as a means to make polluters pay.
Senate Bill No. 3545, which the New Jersey Senate Environment and Energy Committee is debating on Thursday, would seek to impose liability on certain fossil fuel companies for certain damages caused by climate change.
The so-called ‘Climate Superfund Act’ would be similar to one the state of Vermont enacted earlier this year that takes on oil companies to require them to pay for damage caused by their emissions, in the first such legislation in a U.S. state.
Vermont’s move was slammed by the American Petroleum Institute (API), which said that the legislation “retroactively imposes costs and liability on prior activities that were legal, violates equal protection and due process rights by holding companies responsible for the actions of society at large; and is preempted by federal law.”
Environmentalists have now hailed the New Jersey bill as an important tool to make “polluters pay to repair, upgrade and harden our critical infrastructure from climate-driven damage,” Matt Smith, New Jersey Director of the nonprofit Food & Water Watch, told Associated Press.
But the bill has also drawn criticism from industry.
The New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA) said the ‘Climate Superfund Act’ will drive up gasoline and home energy prices while doing nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or impact climate change.
The bill also “unfairly imposes retroactive liability on companies that were acting completely within the law, and were doing so to promote state and federal policies- for the benefit of the citizens of this state,” said Ray Cantor,
Deputy Chief Government Affairs Officer at the NJBIA.
“Advocates who claim you can impose billions of dollars of liabilities on businesses and not expect that to be passed onto consumers are either being disingenuous or fooling themselves,” Cantor added.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
