Gov. Phil Scott has allowed two of the session’s most consequential bills related to climate change to become law without his signature. One holds big oil companies accountable for the damage climate change has caused in Vermont, and another is designed to protect Vermonters from the impacts of more frequent flooding as a result of a warmer atmosphere.
The first, S.259, named the “Climate Superfund Act” and modeled on federal Superfund law, requires the world’s biggest oil companies to pay for damages that their products have caused in the state by way of climate change.
The law directs money owed to Vermont to be calculated based on those damages and the corresponding percentage of emissions that the company was responsible for between 1995 and 2024. Then, the money would be deposited into a Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program Fund, designed to pay for projects that protect Vermonters from climate change and help the state adapt to it.
While several other states have introduced similar legislation, Vermont is the first in the country to enact such a law.
Scott has said he would prefer that Vermont only move forward in the company of other states, rather than setting precedent and inviting almost-certain legal action from oil companies with deep pockets. The litigation process is likely to be expensive.
“Instead of coordinating with other states like New York and California, with far more abundant resources, Vermont — one of the least populated states with the lowest GDP in the country — has decided to recover costs associated with climate change on its own,” he wrote in a letter to lawmakers on Thursday explaining his decision.
“Taking on ‘Big Oil’ should not be taken lightly,” he wrote. “And with just $600,000 appropriated by the Legislature to complete an analysis that will need to withstand intense legal scrutiny from a well-funded defense, we are not positioning ourselves for success.”
Still, he said he understood “the desire to seek funding to mitigate the effects of climate change that has hurt our state in so many ways.” He noted that Attorney General Charity Clark and state Treasurer Mike Pieciak have “endorsed this policy and committed to the work it will require.”
He also found “comfort” in a measure that requires the Agency of Natural Resources to report back to the Legislature in January 2025 on the process, “so we can reassess our go-it-alone approach.”
Vermont’s effort to move forward on its own has brought the state national attention. Publications including The Guardian, The New Yorker and the The New York Times have covered the bill’s progress and potential implications, especially if other states follow suit.
An analysis from Columbia University outlines legal challenges that Vermont could face while defending the law. But supporters point to the growing field of science that is getting better at tracing changes in climate to human-caused sources.
And, if Vermont wins the expected legal challenges, the state could receive a large amount of money, which would be funneled toward climate resilience projects, such as those that would help protect the state from future flooding.
Ben Edgerly Walsh, a lobbyist for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said he expected the cost of damage in Vermont that could be attributed to oil companies to reach hundreds of millions of dollars and to “outstrip, by a couple orders of magnitude, any potential costs to defend the law.”
“What’s incredibly clear is these companies that are responsible for the climate crisis aren’t going to pay Vermont a dime unless we take an action like this,” he said.
Scott also allowed S.213, named the “Flood Safety Act,” to go into law without his signature Thursday. The law establishes a new state permitting system for building in river corridors, sets new standards for wetland protection and increases dam safety measures. Its supporters stress the urgency of preventing many types of development that could be impacted by floodwaters or could worsen flooding downstream.
Vermont has already seen more frequent and intense flooding in recent years, and climate change is expected to cause increased flooding in the state, which is particularly dangerous to Vermont towns located along the banks of rivers.
Scott expressed strong opposition to the bill throughout the most recent legislative session and reiterated some of his concerns in a letter to lawmakers Thursday.
“S.213 is another example of this Legislature’s practice of passing complex and significant policies without appropriate consideration of whether they can even be implemented,” he wrote. “Throughout the session, the Agency of Natural Resources’ subject matter experts repeatedly told legislators that the work required in the bill is not achievable in the timeline it sets.”
Secretary of Natural Resources Julie Moore had often said she wanted to make sure that Vermonters have enough time and input on the law. Her agency estimates that the permitting system, which would take effect in 2028, could apply to as many as 45,000 land parcels.
“However, we also told legislators throughout the session, we support the goals and agree this work needs to be done,” Scott wrote in the letter. “Therefore, this bill will become law without my signature, but you can expect us to come back in January and propose a sensible timeline that is actually achievable and does this work correctly for the people of Vermont.”
In terms of the bill’s expense, Lauren Oates, a lobbyist for the Nature Conservancy who has advocated for the bill, said the status quo is expensive.
“We’re spending tens of millions of dollars every year to help our either direct communities or our neighboring communities, as a collective tax base, recover from and respond to these events,” she said. “It’s costing us way more than we can afford.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, said in a written statement that he believes, “in decades to come, S.213 will be seen as the moment Vermont got serious about preparing for the worst of climate change.”
“We came into this session with one mission above all else: meet the challenge of Vermont’s climate-related flooding issues head-on,” Baruth wrote. The bill, he said, “does just that, by addressing dam safety and high-hazard river corridors and by making wetlands and watersheds more resilient in the face of catastrophic rain events.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont set to become first state in the nation to ‘make big oil pay’.