New York’s Climate Law Flops in Court

 The progressive government raid on fossil-fuel producers hit a roadblock this week, with a federal judge striking down a New York law that would make companies pay reparations for their worldwide CO2 emissions. Sorry, climate change doesn’t let states ignore the Constitution.

Democrats in Albany in 2024 passed a law that required fossil-fuel companies to cough up $75 billion to compensate for alleged damage from their CO2 emissions. “This landmark legislation shifts the cost of climate adaptation from everyday New Yorkers to the fossil fuel companies most responsible for the pollution,” Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said at the time.

Under the law, the state apportions liability among three dozen or so companies that sold fossil fuels in the state based on their estimated contribution to global CO2 emissions dating to 2000. This amounted to a giant tax on the companies—many of which don’t operate in New York—their customers and shareholders.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, fossil-fuel producers and 22 states sued, arguing that the tax intrudes on federal authority, violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and is preempted by the federal Clean Air Act. Federal Judge Brenda Sannes, a Barack Obama appointee, more or less agreed. New York’s Climate Act is “‘simply beyond the limits of state law,’” she wrote.

In instances of “‘interstate and international disputes implicating the conflicting rights of States or our relations with foreign nations . . . our federal system does not permit the controversy to be resolved under state law,’” she explained, citing Supreme Court precedents. Climate change is an issue that involves all 50 states and foreign countries.

Her opinion draws on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in 2021 that dismissed a lawsuit by New York City that sought to hold fossil-fuel producers liable for CO2 emissions. “There is very little daylight left to distinguish the Climate Act from the common-law claims in City of New York,” she wrote.

The judge’s ruling is a welcome rebuke to politicians who are hoping to pillage energy producers. The Supreme Court next month will have an opportunity to shut down these raids when it hears arguments in Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder, which concerns whether federal law pre-empts state law claims for damages from CO2 emissions. The Justices can’t rule soon enough.

New York’s Climate Law Flops in Court - WSJ

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