Senate gives initial support to Sen. Brenner bill to develop a climate superfund

AUGUSTA – Today, the Maine Senate advanced a bill from Sen. Stacy Brenner, D-Scarborough, to take initial steps towards establishing a superfund to support climate change resilience and adaptation in Maine. As amended, LD 1870 would direct the Department of Environmental Protection to determine the amount that historical greenhouse gas emissions have cost the State in climate damages.

“Climate change comes with an astronomically high bill, and it is Maine taxpayers who end up shouldering its weight. While proactive investment in climate resilience is far more cost-effective than repeated disaster recovery spending, so many communities across Maine simply lack the fiscal bandwidth to think beyond immediate needs,” said Sen. Brenner. “By asking the global fossil fuel companies most responsible for damaging greenhouse gas emissions to pay their fair share of the bill, a climate superfund would offer a common-sense, fiscally responsible and equitable approach to protecting Maine’s future in the face of climate change. LD 1870 is a necessary first step down that path.”

Climate impacts are already weighing heavily on Mainers’ wallets, and state and local resources must increasingly be diverted to help them respond to climate change impacts like sea level rise, extreme storms, damaged fisheries, lost farmland, rising insurance costs and public health effects. Last 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. These leading polluters, whose own scientists have understood the cascading social and ecological consequences of their business models for decades, continue to rake in hundreds of billions of dollars in profit each year.

LD 1870 would direct the State to assign a dollar value to the climate damages incurred due to greenhouse gases emitted between 1995 and 2024. This study would provide a foundation upon which Maine can later build a climate superfund program, directing the biggest corporate contributors to climate change to help Maine communities pay for the collateral damage of those emissions.

Once total cost is assessed, similar climate superfund programs now underway in Vermont and New York will require leading polluters to pay a one-time fee proportionate to their responsibility for in-state climate damages. The resulting climate superfunds will help local 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.

LD 1870 now awaits additional votes in the 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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