Vermont to Require Fossil-Fuel Companies to Pay for Climate Damage

On Thursday, Vermont became the first state in the country to pass a law that will charge fossil fuel companies for damages caused by climate change, opening a new front in the struggle by governments across the world to hold companies accountable for products that emit planet-warming gases.

The groundbreaking law, versions of which are being considered in several other states, will allow Vermont to charge companies according to the share of emissions they produced between 1995 and 2024. The legislation was inspired by the 1980 federal superfund law, under which polluters can be forced to pay for environmental cleanup costs.

Funds generated by the law would go toward climate adaptation and resilience projects in the state. Last year, record rain and floods devastated parts of Vermont in its wettest summer ever recorded.

A veto-proof majority of state lawmakers in both parties passed the measure in recent weeks through the Vermont House and the Senate. In a letter to the secretary of the Vermont Senate, John Bloomer, the state’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, wrote that he would allow the law to go into effect without his signature.

“Taking on ‘Big Oil’ should not be taken lightly,” Mr. Scott wrote. “Having said that, I understand the desire to seek funding to mitigate the effects of climate change that has hurt our state in so many ways.”

Environmental groups hailed the passage of the bill. “There isn’t a city, state or nation on Earth that can hide from the effects of the climate crisis, so while we may be the first place to pass a law like this, we certainly shouldn’t be the last,” Ben Edgerly Walsh, climate and energy program director with the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, one of the main backers of the bill, said in a statement.