After the devastating floods that hit Vermont in the summer of 2023, the Vermont legislature stepped up and passed the Climate Superfund Act, requiring some of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies to compensate Vermont for the enormous costs the climate crisis is causing Vermont and Vermonters.
Now, the work of implementing that law is underway. The first step the legislature laid out in the law is for the Treasurer’s office to conduct a rigorous assessment of the cost to Vermont of climate-related damages and investments in climate resilience and response, so that the state knows just how much to bill Big Oil for.
For the Climate Superfund to succeed, this critical work must be funded. The State Senate is considering that funding now – please urge your state senators to support the funding necessary to implement the Climate Superfund Act.
Last legislative session, with the 2023 floods fresh in everyone’s memories, the Climate Superfund Act quickly became a priority for the legislature. Now, with the chaos and incredible suffering the Trump Administration is wreaking, the legislature is being pulled in countless directions.
Every week, there’s new federal funding cut off, a new crisis to respond to. But that doesn’t make the need for the Climate Superfund Act any less pressing. The summer of 2024 brought a new round of “historic” flooding, hitting many of the same towns as the 2023 floods – some much harder – and we know there’s more to come.
As VTDigger recently reported, in town after town the costs are staggering – in many cases, requiring loans that come to thousands of dollars for every single resident.1 And that’s to say nothing of the thousands of Vermont families and businesses that are still grappling with the enormous financial toll of the floods.
The truth is, Vermonters should not have to bear the financial burden of the climate crisis alone – nor can they afford to.
Big Oil must be required to pay their fair share of the cost of the climate crisis their products have created. For that to happen, Vermont has to move forward with implementing the Climate Superfund Act.
Please contact your state senators right now and urge them to fund the law’s implementation.
If that weren’t evidence enough that this work is essential, Trump appointee Kristi Noem has stated she intends to “eliminate” the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which Vermont has relied on for financial relief in the wake of these climate-fueled storms.2 The Trump Administration has already frozen FEMA funds in violation of court orders – something Vermont’s Attorney General Charity Clark has joined other AGs in challenging in federal court.3 And news just broke that FEMA is planning on eliminating (and trying to claw back funds from) its largest resilience program, which Vermont receives millions of dollars from.4
These attacks on federal programs and funding make robust implementation of the Climate Superfund Act even more essential, as it’s clear Vermont cannot rely on the Trump Administration to help us as more climate-related disasters impact our state in the future. Funds from the Climate Superfund Act won’t come in tomorrow, but if we don’t invest in the law’s implementation now, we’ll never see a dime from Big Oil. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars of work today unlocking potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in the future. Even if it’s not a guarantee, that’s an investment we’ve got to make.
1 – VT Digger: Flooding long past, many Vermont municipalities are still swimming in red ink
2 – Mother Jones: Trump Wants to Shutter FEMA. Can States Fill Its Shoes?
3 – NPR: States say Trump’s continued freeze on much-needed FEMA aid violates a judge’s order
4– The Grist: FEMA moves to end one of its biggest disaster adaptation programs