State Climate Liability Bills

States are moving climate Superfund and polluter-pays bills through legislatures to recover disaster and resilience costs from fossil fuel companies, while Congress is also pushing EPA to account for climate hazards at Superfund sites.

The strongest pattern is a policy and legal effort to convert climate damage into identifiable liability and funding streams, even as industry and federal opponents challenge the approach on preemption, attribution, and consumer-cost grounds. Oregon, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, California, and Hawai'i are among the most active states, with New York and Vermont serving as the main precedents and litigation battlegrounds.