Vermont Business Magazine The US Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) yesterday filed a motion for summary judgment in its challenge to the State of Vermont’s “climate superfund” law, which imposes what will likely be billions of dollars in liability on foreign and domestic energy companies for their alleged past contributions to climate change. The complaint was filed in May, along with a complaint against the State of New York for its similar statute, to advance President Trump’s executive order to protect American energy from state overreach.
As the Justice Department explains in its motion, “Vermont is defying federal law, the Constitution, and binding precedent—all so it can punish disfavored businesses for ill-defined harms, without regard to the real harm to our federal system and the Nation’s energy needs.” The motion asks the court to “end Vermont’s lawless experiment.”
As the Vermont Natural Resources Council explained, the Climate Superfund Act is modeled on the federal EPA Superfund program, which has helped clean up – at the polluters’ expense – over a thousand toxic waste sites across the country, including several in the Green Mountains. The legislation requires the largest fossil fuel companies to pay for a share of climate change costs proportional to their emissions from 1995-2024.
“Like New York, Vermont is usurping the federal government’s exclusive authority over nationwide and global greenhouse gas emissions,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of ENRD. “More than that, Vermont’s flagrantly unconstitutional statute threatens to throttle energy production, despite this Administration’s efforts to unleash American energy. It’s high time for the courts to put a stop to this crippling state overreach.”
Chief of Staff and Senior General Counsel John Adams and Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General Riley Walters of ENRD filed the motion.
In May 2024, the Vermont Legislature passed Act 122, The Climate Superfund Act. The law allows the state to recover financial damages from fossil fuel companies for the impacts of climate change to Vermont. Those funds would support climate adaption projects.
9.16.2025. WASHINGTON — The US Justice Department
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