By: Chris Hunter
On August 31, 2026, the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York held that the New York Climate Change Superfund Act (“the Act”) is unconstitutional. See State of West Virginia v. Letitia James (attached). The Act was passed by the New York legislature in December of 2024 and purported to levy $75 billion worth of fines on those engaged in the extraction and refining of coal, oil, and gas between 2000 and 2025—regardless of whether those producers ever operated in the State of New York or even within the U.S. A coalition of states (led by West Virginia’s AG, J.B. McCuskey), industry associations (including the West Virginia Coal Association), Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Inc., and the federal government challenged the Act on constitutional grounds in federal court. Both sides moved for summary judgment, and the District Court heard oral argument on July 30, 2026.
In the opinion, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ summary judgment motions, finding the Act preempted by overlapping federal regulation. The Court found the Act’s strict-liability cost-recovery scheme for worldwide greenhouse gas emissions indistinguishable from the state common-law tort claims New York previously pursued against fossil fuel producers, which had already been rejected in City of New York v. Chevron Corp., 993 F.3d 81 (2d Cir. 2021). The Court further found that the federal Clean Air Act regulates the type of conduct the Act was aimed at. Once the Clean Air Act occupies the field, resorting to state law is permissible only to the extent affirmatively authorized by the federal statute at issue (here, the Clean Air Act). The Court examined whether the Clean Air Act authorized the type of state-law emissions-compensation scheme codified in the Act and concluded that it did not.
The Court issued a separate holding that any cost-recovery demand under the Act directed against a foreign fossil-fuel producer would be barred by the foreign affairs preemption doctrine. The Court concluded that cost-recovery demands under the Act against foreign producers would risk confusion and interference with national foreign-policy goals and would circumvent Congress’s framework of international cooperation on climate change.
The Court’s grant of summary judgment to Plaintiffs on preemption grounds means that the Act is preempted in all its applications and cannot be enforced. The Court ordered the parties to meet and confer and file a status report by September 14, 2026, explaining how they wish to proceed in the action.
The West Virginia Coal Association and the Coal Associations of America were represented by Chris Hunter and Bob McLusky in the suit.