State senators advanced a bill that would apply the “polluter pays” model to climate change, requiring that some of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies — and those that have contributed most to the warming of the planet — pay for damage related to climate change in Vermont.
Senators voted by voice on Friday. Earlier, a 21-5 vote on an amendment to the bill, S.259, indicated the support of a large majority of lawmakers in the upper chamber.
Adapting to climate change is expensive, Sen. Nader Hashim, D-Windham said as he presented the bill to lawmakers on the Senate floor.
“In order to remedy the problems created by washed out roads, downed electrical wires, damaged crops, and repeated flooding, the largest fossil fuel entities that have contributed to climate change should also contribute to fixing the problem that they caused,” he said.
The bill would require the state’s Agency of Natural Resources to work with the State Treasurer to determine how much damage those companies have caused in Vermont, and their fines would be proportional to that amount. The money would be deposited into the Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program Fund.
S.259 targets fossil fuel companies that have produced more than one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions between Jan. 1, 1995 and Dec. 31, 2024.
“Since their beginnings, fossil fuel companies have externalized the cost of the damage that is caused by their product,” said Sen. Anne Watson, D/P-Washington. “Who’s picking up the tab for the devastation caused by climate change? We are. Everyday Vermonters, my constituents and yours, are picking up the tab for property damage, for increased health care costs, lost crops, habitat destruction, and the list goes on.”
Funds could be used for projects including home buyouts, upgrading stormwater drainage systems, building resilient transportation, weatherization projects, retrofitting public and private buildings, assisting farmers and hardening the electrical grid, Hashim said.
The Senate’s support of the bill won applause from a large swath of environmental groups, including Vermont Public Interest Research Group, Vermont Conservation Voters, the Conservation Law Foundation, the Vermont Natural Resources Council, the Vermont Sierra Club, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and the Northeast Organic Farmers Association of Vermont.
Opposition to the bill, including from Gov. Phil Scott, comes from the expected cost of litigation against the fossil fuel companies. Scott has said he would rather see other, bigger states take the lead in establishing precedent for a climate superfund. Massachusetts, Maryland and New York are pursuing similar legislation.
“We’re a mosquito compared to a giant,” said Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin. “We might win, but the cost of doing so, alone, is huge. Exxon Mobil alone has an annual sales of $344.6 billion, and Vermont has an annual budget of about $8.5 billion.”
Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, said the state’s settlement against Saint Gobain, a plastics company responsible for contaminating drinking water in the Bennington area with the toxic chemical group PFAS, gives him hope that Vermont can responsibly lead the way on the issue.
While New York and New Hampshire had the same contamination as Vermont, he said, Vermont was “the first to actually be able to get a negotiated settlement to receive money to extend our water lines to our constituents in Bennington and North Bennington.”
“That, I think, is a good example of what a small state can do,” he said.