A federal judge in Albany struck down New York's Climate Change Superfund Act on Monday, and Tuesday's legal copy made the completed record public. [1][2] U.S. District Judge Brenda K. Sannes, chief judge of the Northern District of New York, held that the 2024 statute — designed to collect $75 billion in strict-liability payments from fossil-fuel producers for worldwide greenhouse-gas emissions — is preempted by the federal Clean Air Act. [1][2] No dollar moved. A statute fell.

The act established a "climate change adaptation cost recovery program" and required "responsible parties" to pay a proportional share of a $75 billion "cost recovery amount," including producers who never operated in New York. [1][2] Sannes wrote that the law is "an unusual and sweeping statute, designed to address the effects of climate change — a 'uniquely international problem of national concern.'" [3] In seeking damages for "the cumulative impact of conduct that has occurred simultaneously across just about every jurisdiction on the planet," she said, it "conflicts with the overriding need for a uniform rule of decision on matters influencing national energy and environmental policy, and basic interests of federalism." [1]

The court treated the statute as indistinguishable from the public-nuisance claims the Second Circuit rejected in City of New York v. Chevron Corp. in 2021. [1][2] New York argued that a cost-recovery law is not a lawsuit and that it was collecting money for harm, not regulating emissions. Sannes said damage payments of that kind are the equivalent of regulation beyond state borders. [3] A separate holding barred cost-recovery demands against foreign producers under the foreign-affairs preemption doctrine. [2] Summary judgment for the plaintiffs means the act "is preempted in all its applications and cannot be enforced." [2] The parties were ordered to confer and file a status report by Sept. 14. [2]

West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey led a coalition of 22 states, joined by industry associations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the federal government. [1][2][3] "This is a major victory in the fight against liberal states, trying to balance their budgets on the backs of our hard-working men and women in the coal, oil and gas industries," McCuskey said. [3] A Hochul spokesperson said the governor's office is reviewing the decision for possible appeal. [3] Climate accounts will read oil-state preemption of polluter-pays. Legal-energy copy will read Clean Air and maritime-scale federal authority. The paper's gap is smaller and colder: the fund was never built. The ruling is a completed court record, not a transfer from Exxon to a seawall.

Vermont's similar statute remains in litigation. The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a Colorado climate case that may decide whether state-law claims for global emissions are preempted. [1][3] Barclay Damon, local counsel to the Chamber, API, the National Mining Association, and the Business Council of New York State, expects New York to appeal and flagged a parallel Justice Department challenge in the Southern District. [1] Jackson Kelly, counsel to the West Virginia Coal Association, attached the opinion and noted both sides had moved for summary judgment after July 30 argument. [2] Those are other dockets and a next filing date. Tuesday's New York file is a $75 billion law that collected nothing.

-- DARA OSEI, London