As I always recommend, but, damnit, the fossil fuels companies never listen, they should stop selling their product to the government of Maine. Let’s see how that works out, especially when all the winter weather hits
Bill to hold polluters responsible for climate change advances in Augusta
Maine may be joining Vermont, New York, and two other states in establishing a “Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program” within the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. The goal is to force the world’s largest oil producers to pay for the impact of climate change. This measure seeks to force the 90 or so biggest oil and gas producers in the world to pay for the climate change they allegedly helped cause.
But getting “Big Oil” to pay Maine and other states for the impact of climate change will be no easy task. “Climate change is a global problem. And we are experiencing damage from emissions outside of Maine and outside of the United States. And in our view, we need a way to pay for that damage”, says Nick Janzen of Maine Conservation Voters, testifying Monday before members of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee.
Only companies who’ve emitted more than a billion metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution would pay for the damage from climate change. “The amount of their financial contribution will be determined in proportion to their share of global greenhouse gas emissions”, University of Michigan Environmental Law Asst. Professor Rachel Rothschild told the committee. The sponsors are also seeking to make the law retroactive to the mid-1990’s.
Consider that the NJ Superior Court already threw out a lawsuit as they “ruled that lawful oil companies could not be held liable for worldwide emissions.”
Maine would also have to prove these big oil companies; who are operating legally in the United States, providing a commodity we all need; are also responsible for sea level rise, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, and to what degree. Lawmakers admit proving big oil is responsible for the weather won’t be easy.
The 3 long term tide gauges for Maine show .80, .76, and .73 inches of sea rise per century with no acceleration. Less than is expected during a Holocene warm period.
Read: Maine Govt, Which Won’t Stop Using Fossil Fuels, Considers A “Polluters Pay” Program »
The United States has never really cared much about tackling climate change, at least at the federal level. Up until the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA — which handed out billions of dollars for people to electrify their homes and pumped billions more into the clean energy economy — neither Congress nor the executive branch advanced truly meaningful climate policy, given the scale of the crisis.
Conservative Republicans have spent more than a decade working toward a wholesale rollback of federal regulations — and now they think they have the legislative battle plan to make it happen.
Thirty-five House Democrats are rebuking the Biden administration’s 11th-hour waiver that cleared a path for California to enact a full ban on gas cars by 2035.
