Committee advances Sen. Brenner bill to establish a climate superfund

AUGUSTA – Yesterday, the Environment and Natural Resources Committee advanced a bill from Sen. Stacy Brenner, D-Scarborough, to establish a superfund to support climate change resilience and adaptation in Maine. LD 1870, “An Act to Establish a Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program to Impose Penalties on Climate Polluters,” would require the biggest corporate contributors to climate change to pay into a fund to help Maine communities manage the collateral damage of those greenhouse gas emissions.

“Experts have understood the science of climate change for decades — and global fossil fuel companies’ own scientists are no exception. Despite the industry’s disproportionate responsibility for the climate crisis and full knowledge about the cascading social and ecological consequences of their business models, it is Maine taxpayers who foot the bill for climate damages,” said Sen. Brenner. “A climate superfund offers an opportunity to equitably realign the immense financial burden of climate change while providing the critical investments Maine needs to thrive in a changing world.”

Climate impacts are already weighing heavily on Mainers’ wallets, and state and local resources must increasingly be diverted to helping them respond to climate change impacts like sea level rise, extreme storms, damaged fisheries, lost farmland, rising insurance costs and public health effects. This summer’s drought, among the worst on record, resulted in millions of dollars in crop losses among Maine farmers. Two years ago, winter storms racked up an estimated $90 million in damage to public infrastructure and untold more to private property.

Major fossil fuel companies are disproportionately responsible for these climate damages. Between 2016 and 2022, 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions were traced to just 57 of these corporate producers — roughly consistent with historical trends since the science of climate change solidified decades ago.

LD 1870 asks these leading polluters, which continue to rake in hundreds of billions of dollars in profit each year, to pay their fair share of the bill. Modeled on similar legislation in Vermont and New York, LD 1870 would require companies that have emitted more than one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions between 1995 and 2024 to pay a one-time fee proportionate to their responsibility for climate damages in Maine. In turn, this climate superfund would help Maine communities make critical investments in resilience, from safer roads and stormwater systems to emergency weather shelters — without diverting resources away from other pressing needs like education, health care or property tax relief. As written, the bill reserves 35% of revenues for climate adaptation projects in rural, underserved and low-income communities with the most significant exposure to climate impacts.

Recognizing that proactive investment in climate resilience is far more cost-effective than repeated disaster recovery spending, LD 1870 offers a common-sense, fiscally responsible and equitable approach to protecting Maine’s future in the face of climate change.

LD 1870 now awaits votes in the full Senate and House.

Sen. Brenner is serving her third term in the Maine Senate, representing Gorham and most of Scarborough. She sits on the Environment and Natural Resources Committee.

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