The Trump administration is asking a judge to strike down New York’s “climate superfund” law that would make energy companies pay the state’s cost of adapting to rising temperatures.
In a brief filed Friday with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the administration argued that the state law “seeks to extend New York’s regulatory reach far beyond the state’s borders, purporting to police nationwide airspace and, indeed, the entire world.”
The Justice Department and EPA filed lawsuits in May against New York and Vermont, which enacted climate laws modeled after the “polluter pays” concept of the federal Superfund program. The state laws seek billions of dollars from energy companies to fund climate adaptation costs, pegged to the historical emissions of the companies’ products.
But the administration accused New York in its newest filing of showing “brazen disregard” for the U.S. Constitution and for federal law governing interstate and global air pollution.
