Vermont becomes first state to mandate that fossil fuel companies pay for climate damages

A new law in Vermont — the first of its kind in the U.S. — will require fossil fuel companies to pay for a share of the costs of weather disasters fueled by climate change.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott allowed the bill to become law on Thursday night without his signature, after it passed in the state Legislature with the support of a supermajority of Democrats.

Vermont’s law has been referred to as the "Climate Superfund Act" because it is modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency’s superfund program, which requires the companies responsible for environmental contamination to either do cleanup work themselves or reimburse the government for it. Vermont’s bill similarly mandates that big oil companies and other high emitters pay for the costs of recovering from and preparing for extreme weather caused by climate change.

Which companies will be charged, and precisely how much, will be determined based on calculations of the degree to which climate change contributed to weather disasters in Vermont, and how much money those events cost the state. From there, companies’ shares of the total will depend on the amount of carbon dioxide each released into the atmosphere from 2000 to 2019.

In the days after Vermont’s bill passed, state lawmakers were unsure whether Gov. Scott would try to veto it. In a note to lawmakers on Thursday, Scott wrote that “taking on ‘Big Oil’ should not be taken lightly” and that he’s concerned about the law’s short- and long-term ramifications.

He added that he is “fearful that if we fail in this legal challenge, it will set precedent and hamper other states’ ability to recover damages.”

But supporters of the law celebrated its passage.

“Finally, the legislative branch of government is