Lawsuit Seeks to Block New York’s Climate Change Law Targeting Energy Companies

Twenty-two states, led by West Virginia, are suing to block a recently approved New York law that requires fossil fuel companies to pay billions of dollars a year for contributing to climate change.

Under the law, called the Climate Change Superfund Act, the country’s biggest producers of greenhouse gas emissions between the years 2000 and 2024 must pay a combined total of $3 billion annually for the next 25 years.

The collected funds will help to repair and upgrade infrastructure in New York that is damaged or threatened by extreme weather, which is becoming more common because of emissions generated by such companies. Some projects could include the restoration of coastal wetlands, improvements to storm water drainage systems, and the installation of energy-efficient cooling systems in buildings.

The measure, which was signed into law in December, is slated to go into effect in 2028.

At a news conference on Thursday unveiling the legal challenge, the attorney general of West Virginia, John B. McCuskey, said the legislation overreached by seeking to hold energy companies liable in New York no matter where they are based.

“This lawsuit is to ensure that these misguided policies, being forced from one state onto the entire nation, will not lead America into the doldrums of an energy crisis, allowing China, India and Russia to overtake our energy independence,” Mr. McCuskey said in a statement.

West Virginia, a top producer of coal, is joined in the lawsuit by 21 other states, including major oil, gas or coal producers like Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and North Dakota. The West Virginia Coal Association and the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia are also among the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit contends that the Clean Air Act, which authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air quality and protect public health, gives the federal government, not individual states, “the chief role in determining interstate emissions standards.”

Mr. McCuskey emphasized this point at the news conference on Thursday. “We’re not going to allow states like New York to usurp the federal government, who has the sole authority to regulate the emissions that are being targeted in the Superfund bill,” he said.

But the New York law does not seek to determine pollution standards; rather, it seeks compensation for past emissions, said Michael B. Gerrard, an environmental law professor at Columbia University.

“I’m sure that the legal significance of that difference will be one of the questions that the courts will have to resolve,” he said.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in New York. The defendants include New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, and other state officials.

“Governor Hochul proudly signed the Climate Superfund Act because she believes corporate polluters should pay for the wreckage caused by the climate crisis — not everyday New Yorkers,” said Paul DeMichele, the governor’s deputy communications director for energy and environment. “We look forward to defending this landmark legislation in court.”

Ms. James’s office declined to comment.

The suit argues that while federal courts have not held coal, oil and natural gas companies liable for climate change, New York lawmakers have decided that traditional energy producers are comparable to tobacco companies and harm consumers with their products.

The Superfund Act targets oil and gas companies that have produced more than one billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions globally over the last 24 years. It was modeled on the federal Superfund law of 1980, which requires companies to pay for the cleanup of toxic waste wrought by incidents like chemical spills. The original law “withstood many challenges in the courts” and survived, Mr. Gerrard said.

Vermont, the first state to enact a law similar to New York’s measure, is not part of the lawsuit.

While announcing the legal challenge, Mr. McCuskey said that coal and gas would be crucial to help meet electricity demand, which has surged across the country.

“We live at a time in this world where the amount of electricity that we are making is not nearly as much as our country is going to need to be secure,” he said.

Electricity consumption increased by 2 percent in 2024, and is expected to increase similarly in 2025 and 2026, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

But supporters of the Superfund Act argue that fossil fuels are not only damaging to health and the environment, but also outdated.

“Pretending that coal and gas are the only way to meet growing energy demands is like insisting landlines are the future of communication,” said Vanessa Fajans-Turner, the executive director of Environmental Advocates NY.

Liz Krueger, the New York state senator who was the lead sponsor of the Superfund Act, said that the law’s purpose is holding polluters accountable for their role in extreme weather disasters, which are predicted to cost New York over half a trillion dollars by 2050.

“That’s over $65,000 per household, and that’s on top of the disruption, injury and death in every corner of our state, principally caused by the product these companies produce,” she said. “No lawsuit will change that.”

Since his first day in office, President Trump has worked to tamp down renewable energy projects in favor of fossil fuel production. He also wants to get rid of tax credits for electric vehicles and is in the process of withdrawing from the Paris Climate agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change.

The coalition opposing New York’s law has an ally in Lee Zeldin, President Trump’s new head of the E.P.A., Mr. McCuskey said. “He looks at energy policy in a way that says that fossil generation of electricity is the current and future of this country.”

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, which is now considering shrinking its staff, did not comment.