Maine has backed off the fight to make polluters pay for climate costs — at least for the moment.
Legislation that’s on the cusp of passing the Maine Legislature would direct the state’s Department of Environmental Protection to study the costs incurred by the state from the past 30 years of planet-warming emissions.
It’s a half-step toward forcing the fossil fuel industry to help pick up the tab for climate damages — but not the full stride sought by climate activists. Democratic lawmakers pulled back from an earlier version of the bill that would have created a climate superfund program to recover those costs from the biggest fossil fuel companies, as Vermont and New York did in 2024.
Maine lawmakers said they were laying the groundwork for their own climate superfund program while Vermont and New York defend their laws from challenges by the oil industry, the Trump administration and Republican-governed states.
