Northeast
NY climate lawsuit is about grabbing green, not going green
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In an attempt to commit legislative thievery, New York Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law on December 26 dubbed the “climate superfund” law.
The new state law assigns a handful of energy producers sole blame for climate change and imposes corresponding financial responsibility for damages alleged to have resulted from it in the past, or which may occur in the future. It compels the oil and gas companies to pay a shared $75 billion fine into a so-called “climate superfund.” New York was the second state to launch such a superfund. Vermont did so last July, and it is battling a legal challenge to its law filed on December 30.
A civil lawsuit challenging the New York law has also been filed in federal court on February 6 by state attorneys general, representing 22 states that will be harmed if New York’s law can extraterritorially limit energy production in those states. The states persuasively allege multiple counts of unconstitutional overreach.
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These climate superfund laws are, in effect, blue states’ attempt to find a new way to legislatively do what they’ve been prohibited from doing in court. Blue states and blue municipalities have been trying to convince courts that they have the power to invent new liabilities under the guise of public nuisance or consumer fraud based on contrived theories that torture the foundational limits of tort law. But they’re floundering in that arena. One by one, the courts are increasingly dismissing the adventure.
Nationwide climate lawsuits are targeting the energy industry but so far have failed. FILE: Pump jacks operate in front of a drilling rig in an oil field in Midland, Texas. (Reuters/Nick Oxford)
For example, on February 5, a New Jersey Superior Court dismissed New Jersey’s climate lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute, ruling that climate change claims are preempted by federal common law.
This adds to the downward momentum of climate change suits. Cases initiated by Baltimore, San Francisco/Oakland, New York City, and many others have been similarly dismissed. And scheduled for March 20, a District of Columbia suit against the energy companies will be heard in the D.C. Superior Court, considering the defendants’ motion to dismiss.
Don’t bet on the legislative efforts by New York, Vermont, and others following the climate superfund legislative model faring any better.
Like the failed climate cases, the superfund law is New York’s attempt to carve out climate policy that, under the Clean Air Act, is ground claimed by the federal government to the exclusion of the states. Federal law preempts attempts for the states to get involved in controlling transboundary pollution. On that basis alone, courts can enjoin state efforts when they meddle in an area preempted by federal legislation.
But there are plenty of other defects too. It’s easy to see the climate superfund law as cash-strapped New York’s blatant attempt to pick a select few out-of-state pockets to pay for a problem with innumerable contributors. Compelling a few energy producers to cough up hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in what amount to fines, no matter how the fees are stylized, is quite simply excessive. And the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibits the imposition of “excessive fines” and the U.S. Supreme Court has recently shown a propensity to give that clause real meaning and enforcement.
Fairness problems also come into play with these laws because they are retroactive — choosing the fund contributors based on past market share as a way to punish them for being successful at lawfully keeping our lights on, our homes warm and our economy running.
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The Fourteenth Amendment demands that state law shall not “deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law,” and the courts make clear that due process does not exist when laws apply retroactively and punish past lawful conduct. These laws violate that guarantee precisely because they impose a penalty for activities that were perfectly legal.
Indeed, they remain legal today. New York has not chosen to outlaw energy production. It couldn’t get away with that. But it is perversely trying to have its cake and eat it too. Energy production is legal, you’ll just be fined if you continue to do it.
Like the failed climate cases, the superfund law is New York’s attempt to carve out climate policy that, under the Clean Air Act, is ground claimed by the federal government to the exclusion of the states.
Yet another legal infirmity that dooms these new climate superfund laws is that they dispense with the obligation to prove causation – another requirement before liability can attach if due process is to be maintained. Normally, a plaintiff has a burden to prove that the defendant committed a wrong and that the wrong is the proximate cause of the injury. And, the defendant’s liability is limited to that portion of an adverse effect that they caused and no more.
A few cannot be held responsible for the emissions of the world even assuming the state overcomes the first hurdle of proving that even these few had an illegal effect on the climate. You cannot simply legislate away fundamental fairness, reflected in our causation requirements, by imposing a penalty through the legislature that you could not impose through the justice system.
Courts adjudicating the challenges to the New York and Vermont laws, and other courts that will undoubtedly receive cases from the laws other follower states are bound to adopt, should stand firm on constitutional principles and invalidate these laws. Fleecing has never been a legitimate end of the state.
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HARTFORD, Conn. (WFSB) – The U.S. Supreme Court said Tuesday it will take up an appeal challenging bans on the AR-15 and other semi-automatic firearms, including the ban in Connecticut and in the Chicago area.
Similar bans are in place in about a dozen states. The case is expected to be heard in the fall.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the state’s assault weapons ban is lawful and that his office is prepared to fight the challenge in court.
“Connecticut’s assault weapon ban is lawful, lifesaving, and broadly supported. The gun lobby has flooded the courts in states across the country to get an assault weapons case up to this Supreme Court. We are prepared for this fight, and we are going to go in with everything we’ve got to keep these weapons of war off our streets, out of our schools, and away from our families,” said Attorney General Tong.
Copyright 2026 WFSB. All rights reserved.
Many Maine municipalities will open cooling centers this week with the National Weather Service issuing a variety of heat advisories covering the next few days.
The Maine DEP also issued an air quality alert for Wednesday with ground-level ozone expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
All of York County, interior Cumberland and Androscoggin counties, and the southern half of Oxford County will fall under an extreme heat warning from 11 a.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. Friday.
The warning calls for “dangerously hot conditions” that could feature heat index values of up to 110 degrees, with overnight lows only expected to fall into the 70s, according to the weather service’s office in Gray.
The rest of the state — save northern Aroostook, Piscataquis and Somerset counties — falls under a heat advisory from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday. However, the weather service has also placed much of the state under an extreme heat watch for Thursday.
Heat index values, which measure how hot it feels to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature, are expected to reach up to 104 degrees during the heat advisory period, the weather service warns. They could reach 110 degrees Thursday, when the extreme heat watch is in effect.
Northern Oxford and Franklin counties, and central Somerset County, can expect a heat index value of up to 99 degrees Wednesday, according to the weather service.
The weather service advises people to drink plenty of fluids, stay in air-conditioned rooms when possible, avoid extended periods in the sun and check up on relatives and neighbors. It also warns not to leave young children and pets in unattended vehicles, as “car interiors will reach lethal temperatures in a matter of minutes.”
Cooling Centers
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has also issued an air quality alert from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Wednesday along the coast from Kittery to Acadia National Park. The agency warns that ground-level ozone concentrations are expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
Ozone levels may reach “moderate levels” further inland, according to the Maine DEP, including in all of Androscoggin and Kennebec counties, as well as parts of Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Penobscot, Sagadahoc, Waldo, Washington and York counties.
Elevated ozone levels can pose a risk to children, older adults and people suffering from respiratory or heart diseases, according to the Maine DEP. Anyone exerting themselves outdoors may also experience health effects, which could include coughing, shortness of breath, throat irritation and mild chest pain.
Ozone levels were already climbing in southern New England on Tuesday, according to the Maine DEP, and winds are expected to bring those conditions to Maine on Wednesday.
The Maine DEP recommends that vulnerable populations avoid strenuous outdoor activities, keep windows closed, and circulate indoor air with fans or air conditioners. Those with asthma are also advised to keep quick-relief medication handy.
Particle pollution levels are also expected to be moderate across the state on Wednesday due to wildfire smoke, the Maine DEP said in its announcement Tuesday. Wildfires in Colorado, which have claimed the lives of three firefighters, had burned nearly 90,000 acres as of Tuesday, according to the Denver Post.
Massachusetts
Missing Massachusetts cat miraculously found underneath owners’ new bathtub — after disappearing for 30 hours
You’ve got to be kitten me!
A beloved feline went missing for an excruciating 30 hours in Massachusetts, only to be found in the most unlikely of places — a hole underneath a newly installed bathtub in its owners’ bathroom.
The Kirby family was renovating a bathroom in their Needham home last week when their cat, Fluffy, suddenly vanished, NBC10 Boston reported.
Assuming the snow white kitty had sneakily slipped out the front door while the construction was ongoing, the Kirby family began to fear for the worst after it failed to return home later that night.
Fluffy’s worried owners raced to Staples the following morning to print out missing cat posters and engaged a pet retrieval specialist equipped with a German shepherd to scour the Boston suburb for the cat.
Treats were also left out to lure Fluffy home — but the search came up empty.
“I thought I was never going to see him again,” Melissa Kirby told the outlet.
Thirty hours after the puzzling disappearance, things took a bizarre turn.
“I was upstairs crying and I heard a little meow,” she said.
“I thought at that point I was hallucinating.”
Melissa was left stunned when she saw a “little paw sticking out a hole” in the bathroom floor where a new bathtub had been recently installed.
Her husband, Ed Kirby, frantically called an after-hours plumber, who asked if it was an emergency.
“Yes, this is an emergency. It’s not a leak,” he desperately recalled telling the plumber.
“Our cat is trapped under our tub.”
Photos showed Fluffy peeking its little white head up from the hole it was stuck in.
In under an hour, Fluffy was rescued from the hole, unharmed and unbothered, and reunited with his family.
While it was a miracle that Fluffy wasn’t hurt, the Kirby family said they won’t be taking any more chances on their little escape artist — and plan to install an AirTag tracker on him.
“If he ever gets out again or gets trapped under another appliance,” Melissa Kirby said, “we’ll be able to locate him.”
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