Within two years of passage, it would require the State Treasurer to assess damages for the state and its residents resulting from greenhouse gas emissions and then direct each emitter to compensate the state for those damages.<\/p>\n
The compensation may total $1-2 billion per year or approximately $40 billion over 25 years, said state Sen. John McKeon (D-Essex), one of the bill\u2019s leading sponsors in the Senate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe climate has warmed and these cataclysmic storms are going to become regular as opposed to once every hundred years,\u201d McKeon said in an interview. \u201dThey come with damage and loss of human life. Does the taxpayer pay, or do the folks who were responsible and knowingly responsible for climate change ante up?\u201d<\/p>\n
McKeon and other supporters say the \u201cpolluter pays\u201d principle that requires corporate polluters rather than taxpayers to pay for environmental damage under the federal Superfund Act of 1980 should be extended to damage that\u2019s caused by greenhouse gases emitted by industrial activity.<\/p>\n
The bill has been advanced by committees in both chambers of the Democrat-controlled legislature. But with lawmakers not due to meet again until after the November elections, it\u2019s unclear whether there would be enough time for the full legislature to pass it and then have Gov. Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, sign the bill before he leaves office at the end of his second term in January 2026.<\/p>\n
If the bill becomes law, New Jersey would become the third U.S. state to seek compensation for climate-related damages from companies that are alleged to be responsible for their long-term sale of gasoline and other petroleum products.<\/p>\n
Vermont<\/a> was the first state to pass a Climate Superfund Law in May 2024, followed by New York<\/a> in December. Both have prompted lawsuits<\/a> by the Trump administration, which says they violate the federal Clean Air Act and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vermont and New York have also been sued by the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n State legislators in California, Maryland and Massachusetts are also considering climate superfund laws.<\/p>\n The New Jersey bill, introduced in September 2024, was first modeled on Vermont\u2019s law but is now closer to New York\u2019s version, McKeon said. New Jersey\u2019s bill sets a specific limit, at least 1 billion tons, for the amount of carbon emitted by individual companies between 1995 and the last day of the year the bill takes effect. The funds would be spent on adaptation and resilience projects such as seawall construction and wetlands restoration.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Vermont\u2019s law, by contrast, requires state officials to calculate the amount of climate-related damage caused by fossil-fuel companies. New York\u2019s version assesses climate damage starting in 2000, and aims to raise $75 billion over 25 years.<\/p>\n McKeon said New Jersey\u2019s generally left-leaning politics bode well for the bill\u2019s prospects. \u201cWe have a Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in both houses of the Legislature. New Jersey is a little different from the hard-right politics that seem to have taken over the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Should the New Jersey bill become law, its supporters expect new legal challenges from the pro-fossil fuel Trump administration and from the petroleum industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t expect less,\u201d said state Sen. Bob Smith (D-Piscataway), another lead sponsor of the bill, and chair of the senate Environment and Energy Committee. But he predicted that federal courts would at least consider the claim that fossil fuel companies should compensate states for the costs associated with climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe federal courts I don\u2019t think\u2014yet\u2014are overwhelmingly so politicized that the case wouldn\u2019t get a fair shot,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very, very factual; it\u2019s clear what the oil majors did to promote even more fossil fuel consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n New Jersey, whose coastal communities were ravaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to its dense population and heavily developed coastline. Climate researchers say the seas are rising along the Jersey Shore higher than the global rate, while the land is sinking.<\/p>\n But in mid-July, the state\u2019s Department of Environmental Protection rolled back<\/a> a rule it had previously proposed that would have raised the required elevation of new buildings in flood-prone areas by five feet above a flood level set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The new rule lowered the elevation level to four feet and reduced the amount of coastal land subject to building standards under a flood-hazard law.<\/p>\n DEP officials said the changes were proposed because of a down-shift in forecasts for sea-level rise and temperature, and in light of about 3,000 public comments received since the rule was published a year ago. Environmentalists slammed the proposed change as an abandonment of the state\u2019s responsibility to protect against climate effects, while the business community said the new plans don\u2019t go far enough in rolling back the new elevation requirement.<\/p>\n For now, the Climate Superfund bill has only 14 cosponsors in the Senate out of 40 seats, and 31 cosponsors out of 80 seats in the Assembly.<\/p>\n The measure also faces headwinds from the business community, which argues that fossil fuel companies should not have to pay retroactively for business activities that were legal and necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"State](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Sen-John-McKeon-732x1024.jpg\"\/)
State Sen. John McKeon (D-Essex)<\/p>\n