New York just made history by passing a Climate Superfund Act to hold corporate polluters accountable for billions in climate damage. Now it’s New Jersey’s turn. Every day our leaders delay, they’re leaving working families and taxpayers to pick up a tab that should belong to Big Oil.
The case is simple: Fossil fuel companies made billions while knowingly fueling the climate crisis. They lied about the risks and funded disinformation. Now that the consequences are here — in floods, fires and heat waves — they want someone else to pay. And with Trump pushing to gut FEMA and dump disaster costs on states, New Jersey could soon be left holding the bag.
Just ask Plainfield. Two residents died in recent flooding, two more were killed in a windstorm earlier this month, and another New Jerseyan died just a town over. Now, the city is turning to mutual aid concerts to fund its recovery. How many more communities have to suffer while fossil fuel giants dodge the bill?
The Climate Superfund Act would change that. It would require massive companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron to pay into a dedicated fund to help New Jersey rebuild and invest in stronger, climate-resilient infrastructure. Not a tax, not a lawsuit — just a straightforward policy modeled after New York’s success and decades of federal Superfund law. The billions raised would be locked for use on climate resiliency and would ease the burden on taxpayers.
And it’s not hypothetical: The bill already cleared both the Senate Environment and Energy Committee and the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee. The public supports it. So do legal, economic and scientific experts. So what’s the holdup?
The bill is stalled in the Senate Budget, Assembly Commerce, and Assembly Appropriations committees — blocked by special interests and the politicians beholden to them, shielding Big Oil from accountability.
Meanwhile, industry lobbyists have flooded Trenton. At every step, petroleum-backed and other business groups have been out in force, working to confuse the public and protect profits. Their goal is to block this bill, no matter the cost to New Jersey families.
The obstruction has been so blatant that even Senate Environment Chairman Bob Smith publicly called it out. “I’m very disappointed with our business community,” he said during December’s hearing. “You have a responsibility to give the right guidance — and the resistance is across the board. This stuff is coming. It’s here. Your membership is going to get destroyed like other homeowners. We need to get our act together.”
The stakes are clear. New Jersey has already suffered billions in damages. Every delay means taxpayers foot the bill while the companies responsible walk away.
Voters are ready. A Stockton University poll shows most New Jerseyans want the wealthy and corporations to pay more and a recent poll shows that 68% of New Jerseyans support the Climate Superfund Act. So why wait?
Opponents keep repeating the same tired scare tactics: that it’ll raise gas prices, hurt business, or spark lawsuits. But New York proved them wrong. Legal experts say the approach is constitutional and well within state authority. Every day, more and more states are moving forward, building momentum behind a simple, widely supported principle — if you helped cause the damage, you should help pay to fix it.
And while this bill is stuck, PJM — the state’s regional grid operator — just raised capacity prices by 22%, the biggest spike in history. That means higher electric bills for families across New Jersey. Why? Because PJM continues to block clean energy from connecting to the grid, limiting supply and driving up costs. Fossil fuel companies profit while ratepayers pay more for a broken system that refuses to modernize.
That momentum is why the fossil fuel industry is pushing back, and why the Trump administration has now filed lawsuits to try to stop state climate superfund laws altogether. It’s a sign these policies are working and effective. The more states that act, the harder it becomes for polluters and their allies to block progress. By passing this bill, New Jersey would not only protect its own communities but help defend the right of every state to hold corporate polluters accountable.
New Jersey has the chance to lead. At a time when families are facing rising costs, when extreme weather is damaging homes and infrastructure, and when public trust in government is under strain, lawmakers can act. Moving this bill forward would deliver real relief to communities, generate dedicated funding for climate resilience and send a clear message that no one is above accountability, not even the biggest polluters in the world.
New York and Vermont showed the way. It’s time for New Jersey to step up — and make polluters pay.