Red State AGs Sue New York State In Challenge To Climate Change Superfund Act

In December 2024, the State of New York enacted the "Climate Change Superfund Act," which would impose retroactive fines on fossil fuel producers for greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. (New York was actually the second state to enact such a law; Vermont had implemented a similar law earlier in the year, and a number of other liberal states are contemplating such laws.) This law has now been challenged in court by a coalition of attorneys-general from conservative states, led by Texas (the other states are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming), who argue that this law is unconstitutional because, among other things, it infringes upon issues that are solely within the purview of federal law (e.g., the Clean Air Act), and not subject to regulation by individual states.