Grace F. Baccare

Following Vermont and New York’s enactment of a Climate Change Superfund Act, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts and California are proposing their own superfund laws, which Marc Rollo, Charlie Dennen and Grace Baccare discuss in The Legal Intelligencer article, “Neighboring States Have Either Passed or Proposed Climate Superfund Laws— Is Pennsylvania Next?”. These states are seeking to impose liability on certain responsible parties for damages caused by extracting fossil fuels or refining crude oil. Compensatory payments would be collected from responsible parties and allocated to a climate superfund cost recovery program. While these proposals have not yet been enacted, they do serve as an indicator that more states will propose their own law, including perhaps Pennsylvania. However, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Petroleum Institute are pushing back and recently filed a lawsuit against the state of Vermont, arguing that their version of the climate superfund law is an overreach of state power. New York will likely face the same legal challenge....

On December 12, 2024, the New Jersey Senate Environment and Energy Committee advanced the “Climate Superfund Act,” a bill moving through the New Jersey Legislature which, if enacted, would impose liability on certain fossil fuel companies for certain damages caused by climate change. The bill also establishes a program within the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (“NJDEP”) to collect and distribute compensatory payments. The bill was originally introduced in the New Jersey Senate as S-3545 on September 12, 2024, by Senator John McKeon. An identical bill sponsored by Assemblyman John Allen as A-4696 is also pending in the New Jersey General Assembly....

On December 9, 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) announced bans on two chemicals—trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE)—pursuant to the latest risk management rules under the bipartisan 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) amendments. A link to USEPA’s announcement of the ban can be found here. TCE and PCE are two of the initial chemicals USEPA evaluated under the 2016 TSCA amendments, along with asbestos and methylene chloride....