New York Will Now Tax America for Climate Change

 One reason so many businesses and people are leaving New York is its tax-and-spending ratchet. And now Democrats in Albany are spreading the high costs of their progressive government to other states under the guise of climate remediation.

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday signed legislation that will require fossil-fuel producers to pay $75 billion to supposedly help the state adapt to climate change. “This landmark legislation shifts the cost of climate adaptation from everyday New Yorkers to the fossil fuel companies most responsible for the pollution,” Ms. Hochul’s office declared.

She’s right about shifting costs, but those who will pay her climate tax are American fossil-fuel workers and consumers. Under the program, bureaucrats will apportion responsibility for climate change among some three dozen companies that have sold fossil fuels in the state based on their global CO2 emissions from 2000 to 2018.

It’s impossible to determine a company’s contribution to climate change since the effects of CO2 emissions on temperature and natural disasters are mediated by myriad variables. Most fossil-fuel emissions stem from their combustion rather than production, so the state is punishing energy consumption, which is a necessity of modern life.

No matter. The state plans to dun fossil-fuel producers a combined $3 billion annually over the next 25 years for their to-be-determined climate contribution. Since foreign-owned producers like Saudi Arabia’s Aramco will likely claim sovereign immunity, U.S. companies—that is, their workers, customers and to some extent investors—will foot most of the $75 billion bill.

The law says this money could pay for “upgrades to roads, bridges, subways and transit systems,” “preventive health care programs,” “upgrading parts of the electrical grid” and “weatherization and energy efficiency upgrades” in buildings. Project contractors will have to pay inflated union prevailing wages.

Upgrading New York City’s sewer system to “deal with regularly-occurring large rain events is estimated to cost around $100 billion,” the law notes. But climate change is merely an excuse to get others to pay for upgrading infrastructure that New York politicians have failed to maintain because they divert so much money to welfare payments and fat public-worker pay and benefits. Ms. Hochul is grasping for revenue now because GOP control of Washington will likely mean less federal largesse for states.

Since New Yorkers are taxed out, she’s looking elsewhere for money. “Taxes are high enough in the state of New York and we have to live within our means,” Ms. Hochul said last autumn. So much for that. She also recently resurrected a hefty congestion tax on drivers entering Manhattan’s business districts ($9 per passenger vehicle), which will smack New Jersey and Connecticut commuters. This is expected to raise $15 billion for the city’s declining mass-transit system.

The new Democratic climate tax end-runs a Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision in 2021 that dismissed a New York City lawsuit seeking to hold fossil-fuel producers liable for their alleged climate impact. The court held that state tort law could not be used “to hold multinational oil companies liable for the damages caused by global greenhouse gas emissions.”

Yet that’s essentially what New York is now doing with legislation rather than litigation. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering whether to hear a case (Sunoco LP v. City & County of Honolulu) about whether federal law pre-empts state and local government claims against companies to redress alleged harms caused by global greenhouse gas emissions.

Ms. Hochul has given the Justices another reason to take the case. Otherwise, the climate extortion by spendthrift progressive governments will never end. Similar bills have been proposed in other Democratic-run states including California, Maryland and Massachusetts. Americans used to call this taxation without representation.