Vermont weather geek's hodgepodge of weather and climate news and opinion. Often Vermont focused, but taking a national and global approach, with sometimes an appropriate dash of fun, outrage, cynicism and compassion.
One of Donald Trump's zillions of executive orders specifically targets "climate superfund" laws in Vermont and New York, but whether the order has any legal teeth is entirely another question.
To nobody's surprise and to lots of eye rolling in Vermont, Donald Trump released an executive order targeting the state's climate superfund law.
Trump says the law "extorts" energy producers.
The law would work much like the federal Superfund law that's been around for decades.
Under the Vermont climate superfund law, a company that produces large amounts of carbon dioxide would have to pay a share of what climate change has cost Vermont, based on how much the company contributed to global emissions during the same period
Not long after Vermont adopted its climate superfund law, New York followed suit with a similar law. Trump's executive order takes aim at both states.
"New York, for example, a 'climate change' extortion law that seeks to retroactively impose billions in fines (erroneously labelled 'compensatory payments') on traditional energy producers for their purported past contributions to greenhouse gas emissions not only in New York but also anywhere in the United States and the world.
Vermont similarly extorts energy producers for alleged past contributions to greenhouse gas emissions anywhere in the United States or the globe."
That's not quite right because the laws do take into account the targeted companies' overall emissions, the laws only seek to receive compensation for the expense of climate change in those states.
The executive order is not just about New York and Vermont and their climate superfund laws.
"The document broadly seeks to restrict states' abilities to set local energy policy, particularly policies that support climate action or renewables like solar and wind, or that impeded the development of new domestic energy sources."
With his executive order, Trump is sticking his nose into something that is already being litigated through the courts.
The fossil fuel industry is already suing Vermont and New York regarding this law. In a normal world, without Trump, this would be litigated through the courts to determine whether these climate superfund laws are constitutional or not.
But that's not the world we live in now. King Trump, or so he thinks can just wave his magic orange wand and everybody will just bend to his will.
Until they don't.
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark, of one, is unimpressed.
She told Vermont Public that Trump's order has no legal teeth and as no bearing on Vermont's enforcement of its own laws.
"The president has a lot of power; he does not have the extent of the power he wishes he had, which is why we see all these executive order that say a lot of words but don't actually do anything.....And this is another one of those examples."
Clark felt compelled to offer this basic elementary school civics lesson to Trump:
"Congress passes the laws. The executive branch, the president, carries out the instructions of Congress, and it's the courts that get to interpret the laws."
There are legitimate legal questions about the Climate Superfund laws, such as whether it interferes with interstate commerce. The fossil fuel industry also questions whether companies should be held responsible for the actions of society at large.
Under the executive order, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has about two months to simple a report and recommend actions to prevent states from engaging in climate policy she deems illegal.
Again, that's really up to the courts and not Bondi or Trump to decide. We hope. But there will be court appeals, no matter what happens.
The fossil fuel industry is not just relying on the courts. It appears that Trump's executive order has to do with a meeting oil executive had with Trump earlier this year. In that meeting, they asked Trump for help in fighting the Vermont and New York climate superfund laws, as the Washington Post reported in March.
Apparently, the oil executives got what they wanted.
It's going to cost billions to fix California after this month's devastating wildfires. Many of the GOP want to withhold aid until blue state California becomes sufficiently MAGA-like.
You've got to hand it to the more big mendacious wing of the GOP: They certainly know how to set up a scheme to get what they want.
They provided a master class on how they operate with the past week's tragic California wildfires. This whole post will sound like a wildly conspiratorial rant, but hear me out.
First, much of the GOP have bombarded us with truckloads of lies and misinformation and red herrings. Their voices of deception are so loud and big that they drown out the facts and the truth.
Leading a sizable portion of the population believing them. Propaganda works.
They're good at packaging up in neat little soundbites. Fox host Jeanne Pirro is especially adept at this, offering a fire hose of lies, exaggerations and fiction Monday evening:
"To have empty fire hydrants and empty reservoir, no water pressure and you know, it's just, it is just a disaster. And, you know how to lose billions for the homeless, and all kids of money for illegals, but can't manage forestry and you can't take care - take something that's predictable. And the question now is whether Americans in other states should be paying the bill for their policy, which really ignored the fundamental prevention efforts."
See what she did there? She's got the gullible thinking that California taxes residents to death to lavish wealth on the homeless and illegal migrants, as if that's a thing.
And now, she concluded, we should withhold aid to desperate, distraught fire victims until, I don't know, California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he has brown people and The Gays and tells billionaires they no longer should pay taxes or something?
IN FOR THE KILL
Next step: Go in for the kill: With the backing of gullible millions of minions across the nation, they go to work trying to change the "enemy" into an image of themselves.
That enemy to them is California. The giant state is not kind enough to billionaires, not cruel enough to the disadvantaged. California's leaders think climate change is a problem, which of course annoys the GOP's fossil fuel company donors.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is fighting back against GOP efforts to withhold aid to California after this month's wildfires.
So, departing from the way things have always been done, the GOP wants to attach strings to any disaster aid.
For now, the proposed "strings" are described in, I guess, code words? MAGA wants better forest management, whatever that entails. The Los Angeles fires have burned through brush land and of course neighborhoods, and not forests.
I saw a clip of Sen. Roger Marshall R-Kansas on Fox giving up the jig and suggesting that some of the strings attached to California aid be that the state abandon its climate initiatives.
"House Speaker Mike Johnson, (R-Louisiana) said Monday that 'there should probably be conditions on that aid,' and pointed to disagreements about California's 'resource management' and 'forest management mistakes,'
(There's that like about forests in Los Angeles again!)
"Sen. John Barrasso (Wyoming), the No. 2 Republican in the upper chamber, also blames the fires' devastating outcome on 'policies of the liberal administration out there' during a Sunday interview on CBS's Face the Nation."
Barrasso wants strings attached to California aid, too. Apparently, liberals should have gotten their act together and somehow blocked the 80 mph winds that fanned the flames somehow.
WIDER AUDIENCE
California isn't the only audience for this GOP stunt. It's a warning to everyone who might otherwise go their own way to fall in line with what the Trumpers want. It is very mafia. Nice state you got there. Hate to see anything ruin it.
Some GOP Congress creatures are completely blunt about this plan.Per Washington Post:
"Rep. Zach Nuns (R-Iowa) said California and other Democratic-controlled states would need to atone for 'bad behavior' if they wanted federal assistance.
'We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who've been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior,' June said Monday on Fox Business. 'We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy. We want to help our colleagues in New York, California and New Jersey, but those governors need to change their tune now."
In other words, become MAGA or die.
If we're going to play that game, should we withhold hurricane recovery aid for Republican counties in Florida where wrecked buildings were built in areas prone to storm surges? Or should we punish red counties in western North Carolina because Republican local leaders allowed construction in flood plains? Maybe we can blame Republicans in Florida and North Carolina for not doing enough to get people out of harm's way?
Sane people wouldn't do that. Disaster victims, no matter their political stripes, need help now if not sooner. So just get it to them and shut up about politics already.
Even the talk of adding strings to wildfire aid is costing money and wasting resources that the GOP is claiming they're so keen on saving.
Newsom also worked out a deal to create a $50 million war chest to legally defend the state against Trump administration overreach. That's $50 million that could be spent on better things, but this is the world we live in now.
On X, formerly Twitter,Johnson slammed Newsomfor daring to clap back at the misinformation campaign.
Newsom's response was: "Mr. Speaker, when Louisiana's need help with hurricanes it's Californians -- many of whom were impacted by these fires -- who foot the bill to help your constituents. And they do it without playing partisan games.
Millions of your supporters are out here and they need your help, empathy, care, and whatever compassion you are willing to express."
At this point, I'm not holding out any hope for compassion or care from the GOP. Newsom probably was wasting his time trying to make that appeal. But I guess he's gotta try.
If Republicans open this can of worms, and Democrats eventually seize power again, are we going to force Oklahoma and Texas to adopt strict climate change measures before providing recovery money in a tornado aftermath? Force Alabama to embrace gay and trans people before we help out after hurricane.
HOW TO INFLUENCE
Besides, there is a way for Congress to influence what happens in California that's fair to everyone, including the victims and the taxpayers they so fervently claim they're siding with.
After every disaster, there's an assessment. What went right, what went wrong, what can we do better when there's a next time.
Things did go wrong in California, despite the heroic efforts of thousands of people.
The firestorm was so explosive, and everybody was using so much water, that the water pressure in hydrants fell to almost nothing, so there was nothing to fight the fire with. There was plenty of water in the reservoirs, but it was being used too fast for the hydrants to keep up. Should there be some sort of redesign of that system?
Should rebuilt houses be required to use fire resistant material, with no vegetation or flammable stuff anywhere near these new buildings? And what about forest management in parts of California and elsewhere. How can we improve that?
Did the Los Angeles Fire Department have enough resources? Was their initial response adequate? What could have been done better?
There's a lot of thing to look at to make the response better next time. And there will be a next time. I know California will do such an assessment, but Congress can mandate that, too, without tying it to aid to disaster victims.
BACKFIRE?
Republicans might already think they have "won" against those silly DEI liberals in California. But they might well have caused headaches for themselves. After all, not all the fire victims are liberal. Surely some of the people who lost their homes in California voted for Trump. So you're going to punish them for not convincing their neighbors to vote for Trump, too?
This could backfire big time in other ways, too. California is a "donor" state, pumping more revenue into the federal government than it takes in. Most red states are the opposite, taking in more federal dollars than they contribute.
I'd wonder if California could somehow retaliate against Washington if disaster aid is withheld?
After every big disaster, the community comes together in solidarity, helping each other, defending each other. That's happening in California.
Will the MAGA types in Congress alienate the Republicans in California who might not like their neighbors' politics, but will still help in a time of need. Will they resent the lack of help from Washington?
Even if Congress doesn't go through with attaching strings to wildfire relief aid, they've already slowed down the process. They'll debate the issue of attaching strings, and that will postpone relief for weeks or months.
Didn't MAGA bitterly criticize outgoing President Biden for supposedly going too slow with aid to flood victims in North Carolina? (Actually, Biden acted pretty fast, but as we already noted, the truth doesn't matter to much of the GOP).
MAGA has already sown plenty of mistrust in the government, and government aid. It's all contributing to the seething undercurrent of rage against all the major institutions of American society.
That anger can't stay contained forever, Hate to say it, but it's going to blow up in somebody's face. Probably the GOP, when too many people decide the Powers That Be aren't on their side after all.
This won't end well.
VIDEO:
The person who explain things much better than I can is somebody known as Politics Girl. She's all over social media, and I highly recommend subscribing toher YouTube channeland/or wherever else you can find her.
In this video, she goes over the disinformation regarding California's fires and she puts it into excellent context. Video is more than seven minutes long and worth every second.Click on this linkto view, or if you see the image below, click on that:
People watch the raging Winooski River rip past buildings during catastrophic flooding in Vermont on July 11, 2023. Business groups are suing Vermont over its "climate superfund" law, which seeks to make fossil fuel entities help pay for damages from climate-related floods like this one.
Lawyers are gearing up in Vermont as business groups fight back against a first of its kind "climate superfund" law.
"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a top oil and gas industry trade group are suing Vermont over its new law requiring that fossil fuel companies pay a share of the damage caused over several decades by climate change.
The lawsuit argues the U.S. Constitution precluded the act and that the state law is preempted by the federal Clean Air Act. It also argues that the law violates domestic and foreign commerce clauses by discriminating 'against the important interest of other states by targeting large energy companies located outside of Vermont."
The lawsuit is no surprise and the legal arguments are along the lines of what experts predicted when the law was passed last year.
The lawsuit,reports the AP, also says that the federal government is already addressing climate change. I guess the argument is, "Why is Vermont sticking its nose in the issue?" Mostly, I think, because federal efforts to combat climate change are inadequate, at least in the opinion of some activists and scientists.
The lawsuit also argues that greenhouse gases come from billions of individual sources so it's impossible to "accurately and fairly" measure the impact emissions from a particularly company in a specific location over decades.
To me, that argument is sort of as if some dude who bought gas in someplace like Idaho to fire up is Ford F-250 last year is just as much to blame for climate damage in Vermont as some fossil fuel giant like Exxon.
Vermont's law, by the way does not target businesses that distribute fossil fuels, like gas stations and fuel dealers. It does target big fossil fuel companies, like the big oil giants.
This Vermont statute, and lawsuit is an interesting battle between the federal government and states regarding who has control of pollution regulation, and for that matter, interstate commerce. The Chamber of Commerce and Petroleum Institute doesn't believe little old Vermont should be meddling in the global fossil fuel trade.
"'Vermont wants to impose massive retroactive penalties going back 30 years for lawful, out-of-state conduct that was regulated by Congress under the Clean Air Act,' said Tara Morrissey, senior vice president and deputy chief counsel of the Chamber's litigation center. 'That is unlawful and violates the structure of the U.S Constitution - one state can't try to regulate a global issue best left to the federal government.'"
The interesting question this raises is what is a state or even local government to do when they believe federal laws and regulation are not adequately protecting them.
So far, lawsuits and threats of lawsuits have not dissuaded other states from considering enacting version's of Vermont's "climate superfund" law. As noted here just week, New York Gov, Kathy Hochul recently signed into law that state's version of this type of legislation, despite threats of lawsuits from the fossil fuel industry.
Other states are considering these types of laws, too.
Scientists keep saying climate change is making many rain storms more intense, which leads to more intense and more frequent flooding.
Anthony Iarrapino of the Conservation Law Foundationtold the AP the fossil fuel industry is "trying to avoid accountability for the damage their products have caused in Vermont and beyond."
As New England Public Media reports, the Vermont law is modeled after the federal Superfund program. It allows the state attorney general to seek payment from fossil fuel companies for a share of what climate change has cost Vermonters since the 1990s.
I'll be first to admit it would be hard to tease out the proportion of last summer's flood, for instance that was created by climate change and which flood damage would have happened anyway.
But not impossible. There's the growing field of attribution science, which use computer models, data and other resources to assess to what extent a particular event was influence by climate change.
I mentioned attribution science in another piece in this here blog thingyover the weekend, in which the World Weather Attribution concluded many of the world's deadliest weather disaster of of 2024 were made worse by climate change.
Vermont hasn't finished tallying the damages from climate change and hasn't yet figured out how much to bill the fossil fuel companies.
Which,according to New England Public Media, is making legal scholars wonder if the Chamber and fossil fuel industry jumped the gun with their lawsuit against Vermont. The fossil fuel interests don't yet know how much Vermont wants to bill them, because Vermont itself hasn't figured that out yet.
Then again, given that other states are interested in this type of legislation, maybe they want to try and nip this sort of legislation in the bud. Who knows?
Following Vermont's lead from last year, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation creating a "climate superfund" to force fossil fuel polluters to help pay for climate related damages in the state.
Vermont lawmakers made waves last spring when the state adopted a law that requires fossil fuel companies and other big polluters topay for climate related damageall those emissions have and will cause the state.
The law faces an uncertain future because, as you might imagine the fossil fuel companies are not happy with this idea and will sue.
But other states have taken akeen interest in Vermont's law, and it's starting to snowball. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law a bill similar to Vermont's earlier this month.
"The bill...... would allow the state to fine the biggest greenhouse gas emitters a total of $75 billion, to be paid over 25 years into a fund based on their contributions to overall emissions between 2000 and 2018.
That money would be used to pay for the damage already done to homes, roads and bridges - and help cover the cost of preparing for increasingly extreme weather in the years come."
Fossil fuel lobbyists reacted to the New York legislation pretty much the same way they did when Vermont passed their own climate superfund law. WaPo again:
"New York's law is almost certain to face legal challenges. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry's powerful lobbying group, sent state lawmakers a memo in 2023 saying the proposed bill was unconstitutional. A could would probably strike it down, the group did, because it was preempted by federal law and sought to hold companies responsible for the actions of society at large."
Plus, there's the ever-present problem of the incoming Trump administration. Sigh.
I think this type of law has merit, but buckle up for a long, long legal fight over this.
California, Maryland and Massachusetts have been considering similar laws, but so far no climate superfund bill has made it to the governors desk in any of those states.
Vermont just enacted a first in the nation climate superfund law, which bills fossil fuel companies for climate related disasters and costs, like last July's severe flooding across the Green Mountain State.
The"Climate Superfund" idea in Vermont we've been watchingis now a done deal, making us the first state to hold fossil fuel giants accountable for effects of climate change.
Basically, what Vermont has now enacted is a make fossil fuel and other industries pay up for climate related disasters that have cost us big money.
Republican Gov. Phil Scott had threatened to veto the measure, but instead last week, he just didn't sign it, meaning it went into law.
In Vermont, if a governor doesn't sign a bill instead of signing or vetoing it, that just signals the governor's relative displeasure or ambivalence about a proposal.
".....he is very concerned about the costs and outcome of the small state taking on 'Big Oil' alone in what will likely be a grueling legal fight. But he acknowledged that he understands something has to be done to address the toll of climate change.
'I understand the desire to seek funding to mitigate the effects of climate change that has hurt our state in so many ways,' Scott, a moderate Republican in the largely blue state of Vermont, wrote in a letter to lawmakers."
Still, give Scott credit. He's probably one of the few Republicans anywhere who isn't have a screaming fit about annoying those poor little fossil fuel companies, most of whom have been making record profits later.
That's one of the reasons the Vermont legislature went this route. They smelled blood. Of course the much bigger reason Montpelier took this step is because that city - and much of the rest of Vermont - was inundated last summer by some of the worst flooding in the state's history.
Floods and other climate extremes have been becoming more common in Vermont with climate change. That, of course follows global trends as the world's climate continues to go off the rails.
One piece of the legislation that appeased Scott a little was a provision in the law that the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources just report back to the Legislature on the feasibility of the effort, the AP reports.
I'll be really interested to see how the state calculates the financial effects of climate change in Vermont and who is to blame. Here's a rundown of how that will work,as the AP describes it:
"Under the legislation, the Vermont state treasurer, in consultation with the Agency of Natural Resources, would provide a report by Jan, 15, 2026 ton the total coset to Vermonters and the state from the emission of greenhouse gases from Jan. 1, 1995 to Dec. 31, 2024
The assessment would look at the effects on public health, natural resources, agriculture, economic development, housing and other areas. The state would use federal data to determine the amount of covered greenhouse gas emissions attributed to a fossil fuel company."
Sounds really complicated, but Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak said he is up to the task. A state treasurer ought to be good at math, but Pieciak better be a genius at it.
I don't know all the mechanisms of this plan. Like, how do you pick out which part of a disaster was "caused" by climate change and what part might have happened anyway? After all, in general, climate change often is not causing weather extremes. It's just making them even more extreme than they otherwise would be.
Litigation over this is inevitable. Predictably, the fossil fuel industry is not amused by all this stuff going on with those crazy Vermonters.
The American Petroleum Institute sniffed that the Vermont law "retroactively imposes costs and liability on prior activities that were legal, violates equal protection and due process rights by holding companies responsible for the actions of society at large, and is preempted by federal law."
Before you say the American Petroleum Institute has a slam dunk case, remember, selling cigarettes is and always was legal in the U.S. Yet, laws went after tobacco companies for the harm their products caused.
I get it they're not exactly the same thing, but the model might just work.
Anyway, theAmerican Petroleum Institute also informs us that the Vermonters behind this proposal and law are un-American heathens bent on destroying the United States. "This punitive new fee represents yet another step in a coordinated campaign to undermine America's energy advantage and the economic and national security benefits it provides," said an API spokesman.
Huh.
You can definitely accuse the Vermont Legislature of being liberal, and it's fair to disagree with some or even all that they do. But I haven't seen in the news any of our fine lawmakers saying the want to destroy America and our way of life.
Maybe I missed the fine print or something.
There's going to be a lot of fighting and twists and turns over this, and some lawyers are probably going to make a lot of money either supporting or fighting this climate superfund idea.
They main thing to watch is whether Vermont started a whole movement much bigger than the taming of the cigarette companies over the decades. Or will this be a flash in the pan. I'm betting against the flash in the pan scenario, since other states are considering following Vermont's lead.
This is not just entertainment, folks. This is a big deal, if only because climate change is the ultimate big deal.
