The Climate Superfund Act made Vermont the first state in the nation to adopt a federal superfund model—requiring polluters to pay for damages—and apply the proceeds to costs from climate harms. The lawsuit, filed Dec. 30, came just days after New York state passed its own version of the law. Massachusetts and Maryland legislators have re-introduced similar climate superfund bills for their states’ 2025 legislative sessions, and a Maine state senator has begun exploring a polluters-pay policy for the state.

The timing, so soon after the passage of New York’s law, leads advocates to think that the lawsuit is, at least initially, a scare tactic to discourage more copycat laws.