The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has urged lawmakers to delay a bill that would make major fossil fuel companies compensate the state for damages from harmful climate change.
Bills proposed by Rep. Grayson Lookner, D-Portland and Sen. Stacy Brenner, D-Scarborough, would establish a climate superfund to pay for mitigation and adaption projects that prepare Maine communities for violent storms, sea level rise and extreme weather.
Supporters say that oil, gas and coal companies responsible for at least a billion metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution should be held accountable for those costs. A warming climate is caused by human activities, particularly burning fossil fuels.
But DEP Commissioner Melanie Loyzim said lawmakers should wait until next year to seriously consider a climate superfund measure. The department wants to wait and see how similar laws in Vermont and New York are enacted and how they fare against legal challenges from the fossil fuel industry and the Trump administration, Loyzim told lawmakers in a public hearing Monday.
"Adopting some version of a climate superfund in Maine now creates an administrative burden for the department to develop a program that may be struck down by judges in the coming year," the commissioner added.
"The last couple insane weeks of committee work is not the right time to pass into law something of this significance," Loyzim said.
The bills are modeled after the federal superfund act, which makes polluters responsible for the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites.
Under the proposal, state agencies would charge companies based on their share of extracted and refined fossil fuels causing damage to Maine. The one-time payments would be set aside in an adaptation fund.
Dozens of bill supporters told members of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee that it was not fair for Maine taxpayers to pay for damages from products companies sold knowing they would harm the climate.
"Mainers have already had to pay to recover from millions of dollars in damage from extreme weather, shifting seasons, and rising seas,” Sen. Brenner said. “Maine taxpayers and communities did not cause these problems, and they are not the ones who should be paying for them.”
Opponents, including the Maine State Chamber of Commerce and Maine Energy Marketers Association said the bills would retroactively assign harm for companies' legal activities. And that if the industry had to pay, it would pass the costs onto consumers and businesses.
The American Petroleum Institute, an industry organization, opposed the Maine bills and has joined lawsuits challenging the New York and Vermont laws.
"This legislation represents a coordinated campaign against an industry that is vital to everyday life and serves as the engine of America’s economy," said API spokesperson Scott Lauermann.
"Retroactively penalizing companies for meeting consumer demand for affordable, reliable energy would set a dangerous new legal precedent, and we are exploring all options to correct this overreach by certain states," Lauermann added.
