New York Democrats just lost again.
A second federal judge has now struck down Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Climate Change Superfund Act, the Albany scheme that tried to shake down American and foreign energy companies for $75 billion over alleged “local effects” of climate change.
According to a Department of Justice press release issued Monday, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York granted the United States’ motion for summary judgment last week, declared the statute unconstitutional, and permanently enjoined the state from enforcing it.
Castel, a George W. Bush appointee, found that New York’s law is preempted on two independent grounds: the federal Clean Air Act and the foreign affairs doctrine. The court also held that the United States has standing to defend its sovereign authority over interstate emissions and foreign policy.
That is the second knockout in a month.
As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier this month, Chief Judge Brenda K. Sannes, an Obama appointee in the Northern District of New York, already shredded the same statute, calling it an “unusual and sweeping” law that was “simply beyond the limits of state law.”
Now Manhattan has piled on.
“New York’s woke climate change law is not only unconstitutional, it is harmful, jeopardizing every American’s access to affordable and reliable energy,” Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr. said in the Justice Department statement.
“We are pleased with the district courts’ decisions finding New York’s law unlawful and recognizing that the Federal Sovereign, not the States, regulates our Nation’s energy market. This Department of Justice will take every step to stop those who wish to thwart President Trump’s agenda to unleash American energy dominance.”
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Energy and Natural Resources Division added: “Both federal judges to consider New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act have held it unconstitutional. Both hold that the federal government is responsible for setting national policy on global pollution, not states.”
Hochul signed the law in December 2024. As The Gateway Pundit first reported at the time, the statute ordered large oil, gas, and coal producers to pour $3 billion a year for 25 years into a state-run “climate adaptation” slush fund.
The targets were not limited to companies operating in New York. Regulators in Albany claimed the power to assign strict liability to any firm they decided was responsible for more than one billion tons of greenhouse-gas emissions between 2000 and 2018 — including extraction and refining that happened halfway around the world.
No finding of illegal conduct was required. Past legal production was enough.
According to Reuters, the first payments were supposed to start in 2028. Vermont passed a similar law. Other blue states were lining up to copy it.
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