I mentioned back in early April that Vermont was looking to do this. Now, they have. And more
Vermont passes bill to charge fossil fuel companies for damage from climate change
Vermont lawmakers passed a bill this week that is designed to make big fossil fuel companies pay for damage from weather disasters fueled by climate change.
The legislation is modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s superfund program, which requires the companies responsible for environmental contamination to either clean sites up themselves or reimburse the government for the costs of work to do so.
Vermont’s bill, referred to as its Climate Superfund Act, would similarly mandate that big oil companies and others with high emissions pay for damage caused by global warming.
The amounts owed would be determined based on calculations of the degree to which climate change contributed to extreme weather in Vermont, and how much money those weather disasters cost the state. From there, companies’ shares of the total would depend on how many metric tons of carbon dioxide each released into the atmosphere from 2000 to 2019.
Even if Vermont’s Republican governor vetoes it, there are enough votes to override. Notice that they are not just going after fossil fuels companies, but, any company with “high emissions.” They really haven’t determined which ones yet, though, so, what will companies who think they might get bills from the government do? That’s right, leave, taking their jobs and revenue with them.
What happens if the fossil fuels companies decide to leave? How does the government itself operate without fossil fuels? How do many heat their homes? Get to work? Operate their boats? Do visitors want to deal with high costs, or, just go elsewhere? How do truck bring goods in if there are no gas stations? How do planes get fuels? And, even if the companies stick around, they’ll just pass the higher costs on to consumers.
The bill hinges on the ability to assess how much damage in Vermont has been caused by climate change — an accounting that would rely on a line of research known as attribution science. Over the last 20 years, researchers have honed their ability to confidently model the degree to which human influence has contributed to the severity and frequency of extreme weather.
So, junk science.
State Sen. Russ Ingalls, a Republican, said he cast one of the three “nay” votes because he anticipates the law would trigger major litigation and thinks the money the state would have to spend in those legal battles could be put to better use.
“A decision was made to go to war with corporations that probably have as many attorneys as we do citizens,” he said. “We will be squashed like a bug.”
The American Petroleum Institute, one of the major lobbies for the interests of oil and natural gas companies, sent a letter to the state Senate opposing the bill, saying it “violates equal protection and due process rights by holding companies responsible for the actions of society at large.”
Lawsuits will be coming hard and fast. And, if the fossil fuels companies had any cajones, they would refuse to operate in Vermont until the lawsuits are resolved. Or, at least refusing to provide their goods to the state government.
How about holding companies responsible for acts of God, which is the common accepted legal definition of the weather? There is literally nothing any company can do to prevent any such damage just as there is nothing they can do to cause it. The pollutants cranked out by China and India dwarf anything done in the USA and dominate any cuts American companies might make in CO2. This law is the very definition of arbitrary and capricious. Good thing hardly anyone lives in Vermont. [cue H to cut and paste some useless statistics about Vermont population demographics]
Commenter typed: pollutants cranked out by China and India dwarf anything done in the USA
If by “pollutants” the commenter means CO2 – today, the US emits much more than India, while China emits double what we Americans do.
Note too that CO2 is retained in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Up until 1970 the US and Europe were biggest emitters, emitting almost all the excess CO2 to the atmosphere, but since 1990 have dropped emissions while China, India and the rest of Asia have ramped up so that today the China, India and the rest of Asia emits over half the CO2.
Well, if you say so, Karen (aka Rimjob).
Now make up something else to tell everyone why that would be so awful.
Give it a try, dipshit.
Bwaha! Lolgf
The legislation is modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s superfund program, which requires the companies responsible for environmental contamination to either clean sites up themselves or reimburse the government for the costs of work to do so.
It sounds like they can go after anyone they want to. Based on the above-referenced paragraph, they could charge the Saudis for pumping it, companies for shipping it, and other companies for delivering gasoline. They could charge stores for selling it etc…etc…etc.
This is a classic example of the slippery slope argument. Before long, it will be how many metric ounces YOU as a person used this year. ITS YOUR FAULT.
FASCISM taken to a new level. Welcome to the ENVIRONAZI movement. It won’t be long before we have pre-WW2 CC camps where everyone graduating from school has to volunteer for two years of environmental prison.
1984 creeps closer and closer to reality.
Never mind that without the petroleum industry our standard of living would still be stuck around 1840. This is par for the course for the People’s Republik of Vermont and fairly normal for leftist legislatures everywhere.
We passed a law! That makes it so, right?
Uhm, No. But this is how they made Vermont Yankee, along with its 600 megawatts and 600 full time jobs, disappear. They just passed a law that decreed that Entergy owed the state more money than you can shake a stick at, plus the stick. Well, they got their wish, and Vermonters (I was one of them) paid for it then and they are still paying now, 3 years after I escaped.
Much like all Burlington property owners are still paying for “policies” that Bernie cooked up to make himself and his family rich when he was pretending to be the mayor.
After I retired and relocated, I could not believe how inexpensively I could live in an area that operates with an eye toward serving the populace versus ruling them.
Holding those responsible for damage? Irony much?
I am guessing that oil delivery companies will not get credit for all the good they have done to offset the “harm” that is claimed against them. If the system were fair and just, all of the wages they paid to employees, all the good that was done by putting their products into fire, police and military vehicles, all the home heating and cooling, all the electrical generation, all the taxes paid, should be credited to them. The “cost” of environmental harm would be a small fraction of that amount. The state would OWE money to the companies.
Simple solution. Cease all fossil fuel based business and operations within the state of Vermont; and prohibit the sale or distribution of their products within said state. I foresee a long, hard, and cold winter in Vermont’s future; since they will have no access to their precious heating oil and coal. Said companies MUST sue the state of Vermont; as well as all of her citizens; for not retrofitting their homes and businesses with the latest, modern; and EFFICIANT equipment available; and for engaging in wanton waste of resources and causing environmental harm themselves. What has happened to all the REAL lawyers that we used to have in America?
William Teach typed: if the fossil fuels companies had any cajones, they would refuse to operate in Vermont until the lawsuits are resolved
The oil and gas companies are in the business of selling oil and gas. In addition, there are multiple corporations selling oil and gas. Should these independent oil and gas companies collude in refusing to sell oil and gas to Americans? If one oil and gas company refused to go along with the plot, they’d gain a competitive advantage over the others.
This was the bête noire of the fossil fuels companies all along – that they would be held responsible for societal damages (i.e., negative externalities) resulting from their legal products, used legally, just as the tobacco sellers took a huge hit in 2006. And just like the tobacco sellers, fossil fuels companies knew long ago…
Yeah, except for the minor fact that the models consistently fail.
There are no provable damages from climate change that can be linked to human fossil fuel usage. Everything the claim are damages are highly speculative at best, since nobody can honestly link anything to climate change, let alone anthropomorphic climate change (which is more theoretical than factual).
I think refusing to deliver bulk fuels into the state until the state legislature comes to its senses is a great idea. I suspect it would happen in less than a month.
Vermont is a small state, so most of them can go to New Hampshire or New York or Massachusetts to buy gas. But a huge number of Vermont homeowners and businesses use heating oil in the winter. DO they really want to freeze themselves out?
What evidence would you find “proves” the theory that certain damages are caused by global warming?
While not technically a fossil fuel, Wood for stoves and fireplaces is also a primary heating fuel in places like Vermont and a contributor to CO2. Under this same provision, Vermont would need to “control” or fine providers of wood. But if they were really serious, they should punish all the users of those fuels including users of electricity generated by any fuels including electricity generated by wind/solar if the wind and solar components themselves were created using such fuels. Just as with tobacco, it’s the users’ fault. Except the logic does not lead to reduced CO2 release. It just leads to wealth transfer. It’s almost as if the activists already know that reducing CO2 was never really the goal.
The differences between fossil fuels and wood fuel is obvious.
We grow and consume fruits, grains and vegetables releasing their “stored” carbohydrates as CO2!! Why isn’t eating carbs a contributor to global warming? It’s because the plants had recently captured CO2 from the atmosphere. Therefore no net gain in atmospheric CO2. It’s the same with burning wood or cow dung for heat – the trees and grasses had recently captured the CO2.
Fossil fuels have stored their carbon as coal, oil and gas for hundreds of millions of years and we’ve released that CO2 relatively rapidly.
So, if someone tries to limit your combustion of foods (biologically speaking) or wood, push back. Wood burning DOES release other damaging pollutants than which is a problem in its own right. Other irritating gases and particulates are released.
This is unsurprising given the idiocy of the parasites in Montpelier. There is a little glimmer of hope, though. When the legislature changed the reimbursement formula for school districts,, local property taxes jumped up, so this year school budgets were voted down all over the state. Then they were voted down when a re-vote was scheduled in April. In June, we’ll be voting on the school budget for the third time. I’m not sure it’ll pass this time either.
People, even the dimwitted progs, are getting tired of paying more and more for less and less. The dimwits in the legislature ought to pay attention.
When you stop granting your permission, they stop asking for it. The American people never wanted to give $61 billion to Ukraine, open our borders to massive immigration, fully support the fringe of the LGBTQ agenda, or even to create Obamacare, but we got all of it anyway.
Even in California when they overwhelmingly passed a referendum to define marriage as between a man and a woman, a single California judge struck it down and told the people of California, “you can’t have that so stop asking”.
[…] the Pirate’s Cove, the Pirate has this […]