The foundation of American government rests on a simple but powerful principle: states are not mere departments of the federal government. They are sovereign entities with both the right and the responsibility to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of their residents.
President Trump’s recent executive order, which instructs the Justice Department to block state climate laws such as New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act, is a direct attack on that principle. But executive orders cannot undo duly enacted state laws.
Trump’s action is a political stunt, not a legal reversal. New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act stands on strong constitutional ground.
Across the country, states are stepping up to respond to the rising toll of climate-fueled disasters. More than ten states have introduced climate superfund legislation based on a simple idea: those massive, multinational oil and gas corporations that caused the climate crisis should help pay for the damage. This is not only fair but necessary. The costs of climate change are staggering, and without action, those costs are already falling entirely on the shoulders of working families.
In New York alone, it will cost an estimated $52 billion to protect New York Harbor from climate change, $75 to $100 billion to defend Long Island, and another $55 billion to safeguard communities across the rest of the state. Without laws like the Climate Superfund, that burden would be borne entirely by local governments, homeowners and taxpayers, who are also seeing climate-driven cost increases in their homeowner’s insurance, health care and numerous other expenses.
Under our system of federalism, states have always had broad authority to enact laws that protect their people. That authority is rooted in the Tenth Amendment and reinforced by centuries of precedent. Whether regulating public health, consumer safety, or environmental protection, states serve as both innovators and defenders when federal action falls short.
The Climate Change Superfund Act continues that tradition. It applies the longstanding “polluter pays” principle to today’s climate disasters. Instead of asking the public to foot the entire bill, it holds the largest, most profitable global fossil fuel companies accountable for the damage their products have helped cause.
Trump’s executive order does not simply challenge this one law, but rather the very idea that states have the right to hold powerful interests accountable when Washington will not. By branding state efforts as "illegal" simply because they conflict with his administration’s ideological agenda, the president undermines the same state sovereignty that he once claimed to champion.
Federalism was never meant to guarantee uniformity across all 50 states. It exists to empower states to meet the specific needs of their people. From fires in the West to floods in the Northeast, extreme weather is overwhelming local budgets. Communities everywhere are being forced to rebuild, and they have every right to demand that the companies who profited the most from pollution help pay for the recovery.
Trump’s executive is not for families struggling to rebuild after a disaster, nor for mayors trying to repair storm drains, nor for governors strengthening coastlines. Rather, it is for fossil fuel lobbyists, for billion-dollar polluters and for the same corporate interests that have fought climate and economic progress at every turn.
The costs of climate change are here; the only question is who will pay those costs. States like New York are choosing fairness. We are choosing to make the biggest global polluters pay. The right to protect our communities belongs to the people and the leaders they elect, and it’s not limited by the whims of Washington insiders or oil industry lobbyists. We intend to defend that right, in the courts, in the legislature and in the court of public opinion, for as long as it takes.
Liz Krueger is a New York state senator and Jeffrey Dinowitz is a New York assemblyman.
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