At issue is the new law in The Empire State that forces energy producers, gas and oil companies, to pay $75 billion into a so-called “superfund” to offset the damage from climate change they are accused by Democrats of permitting.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the bill, the Climate Change Superfund Act, into law in late December.
The lawsuit, filed in Albany, includes 22 state attorneys general who allege the state law is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit names Attorney General Letitia James and other officials as defendants.
"This lawsuit is to ensure that these misguided policies, being forced from one state onto the entire nation, will not lead America into the doldrums of an energy crisis, allowing China, India and Russia to overtake our energy independence," John McCuskey, West Virginia’s attorney, said in a statement.
If New York gets away with its new law, McCuskey and other attorneys general predict other state legislatures will also see an opportunity to blame the oil and gas industry, and tax them until they are put out of business.
A spokesman for Gov. Kathy Hochul said the governor was not phased.
"We look forward to defending this landmark legislation in court and defeating Big Oil once again," the spokesman said.
In a previous AFN story, when Hochul signed the bill, Peter Murphy of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow called the law ridiculous.
"It somehow assigns carbon emissions as pollutants that are altering and causing extreme weather events," Murphy told AFN. "There's just no evidence that carbon emissions cause, lead to extreme weather events."
There have been hurricanes, and other terrible storm activity, for as long as the earth has existed regardless of the levels of carbon, he said.
Murphy agrees with the argument of those bringing the lawsuit that what New York is doing is unconstitutional. "People need to take it seriously [and] the courts need to take it seriously," he explains, "because you cannot allow a lunatic state legislature in one state to impact the livelihoods and energy needs of people in other states."
That, says Murphy, is why the U.S. Constitution leaves interstate commerce in the hands of Congress, not individual states.
"If this is not contained, if courts and Congress do not address this soon, the risk is that it's every state for itself and they can start doing things that harm somebody else's residence," he argues. "It would be chaos."
Besides West Virginia, the states joining the lawsuit are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.
2/11/2025 - More comments from Peter Murphy added.
