RUTLAND— Vermont is trying to fend off the Trump administration’s legal challenges to its trailblazing law that forces fossil fuel companies to pay for their role in climate change.
Lawyers for the federal government argued Monday in U.S. District Court in Rutland that Vermont’s law is unconstitutional. Attorneys for Vermont argued that not only is the state operating within its authority, but it’s too soon to say otherwise.
The law in question is Vermont’s Climate Superfund Act, which gives the state a roadmap to decide what fossil fuel companies it will impose fees on and how much it will charge them. From there, the state is set to spend those payouts on projects that help the state adapt to climate change.
The state is still in the early stages of developing its plan — and it won’t publish an assessment of the costs until January 2027.
The federal government and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued the state for its law last year, arguing it’s unconstitutional. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, bolstered by support from West Virginia and a host of other states, filed another lawsuit challenging Vermont’s law.
But to successfully stop Vermont’s law so soon, the federal government has to meet a high bar — proving the law would be unconstitutional in any way it’s applied.
Lawyers from the federal government argued that Vermont is overstepping its authority as a state by attempting to regulate interstate emissions and business, which is the role of the federal government.
“If Vermont can do it, any state can do it — and the result is chaos,” said Steven Lehotsky, who represented the Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute Monday.
Lehotsky argued that Vermont was out of line by trying to regulate emissions from fossil fuels, which inherently affect every state in the country. Vermont is also out of line, the federal government argued, because its law attempts to regulate businesses that are outside of state borders — and sometimes outside of the country.
It makes more sense for the U.S. government to have one coordinated, nationally-prescribed policy on climate change, said Adam Gustafson, a lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department. Vermont’s law impairs foreign relations and “frustrates the government’s ability to speak with one voice,” Gustafson said.
Attorneys defending the Vermont law argued the state isn’t trying to control out-of-state emissions or even mitigate climate change. Rather, it’s trying to recover costs to help the state adapt to climate change, said Jonathan Rose, solicitor general with the Vermont Attorney General’s Office.
The U.S. Constitution, Rose argued, gives the state the right to protect its state and citizens from the effects of climate change. By only targeting companies responsible for fossil fuel emissions that have a significant tie to Vermont, the state is acting within its authority, he said.
“It doesn’t take a stance on national climate policy,” Rose said. And no federal law states that Vermont can’t take the action it intends to under its Climate Superfund Act, he said.
Adeline Rolnick, one of the attorneys defending Vermont’s law, said the state hasn’t even gotten the chance to roll out its law, meaning it’s too soon for the court to decide the law is unconstitutional and rule against it.
After the hearing, Rose said he was not sure when District Judge Mary Kay Lanthier would issue a decision. Gustafson and Rose both declined to comment on the Monday hearing.
