by Fiona Sullivan, for The Montpelier Bridge

The Vermont Climate Superfund Law aimed at holding oil companies financially responsible for flooding and other damages caused by climate change is facing a flurry of litigation that Gov. Phil Scott anticipated when he declined to endorse the measure last year. 

Despite the cost of defending the law against court challenges by the federal government, other states, and the oil industry, an effort to repeal the Vermont Superfund Act faces an uphill battle in the Democrat-controlled state legislature. 

Legislators also have yet to allocate sufficient funds to carry out tasks required to implement that law, according to Ben Walsh, climate and energy director of Vermont Public Interest Group.

However, Vermont received a respite in the recent federal court ruling on June 30, in which the Vermont federal district court ruled that the Conservation Law Foundation and Northeast Organic Farmers Association of Vermont (NOFA-Vermont) can aid the state of Vermont in its legal battles regarding the Climate Superfund Act, according to Anthony Iarrapino, a lobbyist for the Conservation Law Foundation, and a Montpelier resident. 

Iarrapino noted in an email to The Bridge that “The last two years of extreme weather and flooding in central Vermont have left many families, farms, and municipal finances drowning in red ink. Washington County is exhibit A when it comes to the case for a Climate Superfund to ensure that ‘Big Oil’ pays a fair share to help us prepare for and recover from the climate disasters their products have caused.” The Climate Superfund Law states that ‘big oil’ should be held financially accountable for climate-related damages from 1995 to 2024.

Some of the climate change adaptation projects the Climate Superfund Law could potentially fund are weatherization and efficient HVAC systems in public schools, modernizing wastewater infrastructure to avoid sewage overflows from extreme rain, upgrading stormwater drainage systems as well as trains, bridges, railroad systems as well as funding preventative healthcare and self-sufficient microgrids, according to Walsh. 

In a May 30, 2024 letter to the General Assembly, Gov. Scott wrote that while he understands that climate change has hurt the state, Vermont should be working with states such as New York and California that have more resources. “Taking on Big Oil should not be taken lightly,” he said, citing concern for Vermont’s “go-it-alone approach” and its ability to “withstand intense legal scrutiny from a well-funded defense.”

In his 2025 January budget address, Gov. Scott expressed concern over the cost of lawsuits. He said lawmakers should “revisit the climate superfund bill because it is already costing taxpayers money as we defend the first of what could be many lawsuits.” 

The first legal salvo came on Dec. 30, 2024, when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed suit against Secretary Julie Moore of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and Jane Lazorchak, director of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources Climate Action Office. 

In addition to the federal government, a court challenge to the Vermont law filed May 1, 2025, names as plaintiffs the American Petroleum Institute and two dozen states. 

The plaintiffs assert that “Vermont intends to wring funds from producers, thus raising the prices on consumers, to subsidize certain Vermont-based ‘infrastructure projects,’” with the result of “more expensive energy for the average American.” 

Other arguments outlined in the civil suits against Vermont include the following: “The Superfund Act is preempted by the Clean Air Act, exceeds the territorial reach of Vermont’s legislative power, unlawfully discriminates against interstate commerce, conflicts with federal interstate commerce power, and is preempted by federal foreign-affairs powers.” 

Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize-winning economist, disagrees that state climate superfund bills will raise energy prices for the average American.

The price of oil and gasoline is determined nationally and globally, Stiglitz said, in his YouTube video titled, “The Economic Case for Climate Superfund Laws.” One state’s actions, he said, “relative to the size of the industry are miniscule.” 

Additionally, Stiglitz said, many companies will not be affected by the levies imposed under such laws, and competition from these companies will drive prices down. 

With windfall profits due to events such as the pandemic and the Ukrainian war, Stiglitz said, “they [oil companies] can afford these taxes.” 

However, Walsh of the Vermont Public Interest Group said “polluter-pays” laws, such as the federal superfund law, consistently fine companies responsible for site clean-up costs and that “it’s a longstanding precedent that the companies that profited from an activity that then caused costs [damages] are the appropriate entities to pay these costs.” 

“The companies that are at the root of the climate crisis — the ones that have extracted and refined fossil fuels,” Walsh said, “were handsomely compensated for those products, and made enormous profit on them.”

Rep. Ela Chapin (D-Washington 5) wrote in an email to The Bridge, “The Climate Superfund Act will enable our state and municipalities to make needed climate resilience investments to address climate change impacts like flooding events and extreme heat. Our communities need to adapt to climate change, and such adaptation and resilience takes significant resources. The Climate Superfund Act ensures that those responsible for the pollution that has caused climate change will contribute to addressing this pollution, just like our national superfund laws have done since 1980.”

Walsh also noted that the amount to be paid by these companies will most likely be lower than their “proportional share of the actual costs of the climate crisis, given the inherently conservative nature of climate attribution science” and because many climate impacts cannot yet be modeled and will therefore be left out of the estimated costs. 

Meanwhile, to be in compliance with the Vermont Climate Superfund Law, the legislature needs to both allocate funds to defend against the legal challenges and to pay for required greenhouse gas emission reports and climate resiliency plans. In fiscal year 2025, the legislature allocated $600,000 to the program, according to Walsh. This legislative session $350,000 for fiscal year 2026 was allocated to fund the law — much less than the amount of funds requested by the state Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) and the Treasurer’s Office. 

The funding allocated is likely not enough to carry out the required tasks associated with the Vermont superfund act, Walsh wrote in an email to The Bridge. And in a text to The Bridge, Rep. Kate Logan (Prog/D-Chittenden 16) wrote, “It’s unfortunate that the state won’t make a full commitment to doing the preparatory work in order to implement the superfund act.” 

 “The most likely scenario is that both the Treasurer’s Office and ANR need additional funding next year in either the Budget Adjustment Act (usually passed in March) or the budget itself.”