Climate Activists Are Passing Laws To Tax the Past
A New York law demands fossil fuel companies pay $75 billion for carbon emissions dating back to the year 2000. Other Democrat-controlled states plan to follow suit.

Climate activists have found a new way to force us to pay more for energy.
New York and Vermont passed laws that will raise the price of oil, gas, and electricity by taxing the past.
New York's new law demands fossil fuel companies pay $75 billion for carbon emissions dating back to the year 2000. Other Democrat-controlled states plan to follow suit.
In my new video, Travis Fisher, energy director at the Cato Institute, argues that taxing the past is wrong: "I've been filling up my gas tank for 25 years. Will they go after me for every time I've filled up my tank?"
Maybe.
A more honest way to punish burning of fossil fuel is a carbon tax. "If you want to change people's behavior," says Fisher, "you tell them that their behavior is going to be taxed. This is taxing behavior that's already occurred—perfectly legal at the time. So, there's no possible change in behavior."
Politicians don't push a carbon tax because they know voters won't like it. So they pretend oil companies will pay. They know voters don't like oil companies.
"The deceit from these companies," shouts California Gov. Gavin Newsom, "playing us for fools!"
He blames fossil fuel companies for his own government's failures. "Wildfires and floods and droughts," he says, "this climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis!"
"That just absolves him from any responsibility for anything," says Fisher. "Power out, wildfires, everything is climate change. Nothing is Gov. Newsom's fault."
But Big Oil is so rich, say activists, they can easily pay. A CNN correspondent claims, "The amount of money they are making, some will certainly see as obscene, unconscionable."
"'Unconscionable' is actually in [New York's] text," says Fisher, adding that these new laws are an expansion of government power that "[sets] a precedent that they could tax anyone for anything going back as far as they want."
And yet, the new tax won't change the climate.
"If New York stopped using fossil fuels altogether," says Fisher, "what impact would that have on the global climate?…Zero."
That's because the entire United States, let alone New York, emits just a fraction of the world's carbon.
In their bill, New York politicians compare fossil fuel producers to tobacco companies, writing, "The actions of many of the biggest fossil fuel companies closely [reflect] the strategy of denial, deflection and delay perfected by the tobacco industry."
Politicians and greedy lawyers did get tobacco companies to pay more than $200 billion.
But was that justice? I don't think so.
The lawyers grabbed $8 billion for themselves. But alleged Big Tobacco bad guys who misled people about cigarettes' risk aren't paying for the settlement. Most had left their companies long before.
Today's smokers must pay the bill via costlier cigarettes. Likewise, we fossil fuel users will be the ones paying these new fines.
Although there are big differences between oil and cigarettes.
"If we all quit cigarettes," says Fisher, "nothing catastrophic happens. Quit fossil fuels, the world grinds to a halt."
Eighty percent of our energy comes from coal, oil, and natural gas, and that won't change soon. Solar and wind power aren't reliable enough.
So these new retroactive oil taxes are mostly a way for state politicians to grab more of your money—in my state's case, an arbitrary $75 billion.
I ask Fisher, "Isn't it calculated based on things fossil fuel companies did?"
"No," He replies. "There's sophisticated literature about the social cost of carbon. They decided to skip all of that. Skip the trial. You're just guilty."
So, in New York and Vermont, everyone who uses fossil fuels will be punished.
Those of you in California, New Jersey, Maryland, and Massachusetts will probably be hit by similar taxes soon.
"They're coming after everyone's lifestyle. That's only made possible by fossil fuels," says Fisher. "It's a shame because really, when I think about what America could be, we could be so much more prosperous than we are."
Much more prosperous. But many politicians just won't let that happen.
COPYRIGHT 2025 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
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Ex post facto has left the building, and isn't coming back.
Taxes have somehow traditionally been exempt from the ex post facto rule but I never understood the legal basis for that distinction.
The article is about New York.
wrong place
I had a dyslexic moment and thought you wrote Texas not Taxes. I think the legal basis is "fuck you lets see you do something about it" as it is with all things government.
Fuck New York and Vermont, thieving bastards. Next they'll follow the Maryland plan; we can't build power plants so next best thing eminent domain private property to run lines down from PA.
Without eminent domain you wouldn't have any electric power at all.
These companies should leave those states. Make them BEG them to return.
New York is too big a market to ignore.
Madness.
"A New York law demands fossil fuel companies pay $75 billion for carbon emissions dating back to the year 2000. Other Democrat-controlled states plan to follow suit."
Let's say for the sake of argument these fascist states win their suits all the way through the SCOTUS.
Then what?
The oil companies go bankrupt, and the US has no more oil, natural gas or gasoline to literally drive the economy.
This is beyond stupid.
This is insanity on steroids.
Remember when the NY gov was trying to claim they are business friendly. After charging Trump. Laughable.
Not fascist just a bad tax.
Oil companies aren't going bankrupt and besides Trump would spend your tax money to bail them out if they did.
Help those states meet their carbon goals - immediately stop all business in the state.
New York is already at or near the bottom in per capita carbon emissions amon US states. My own State Assembly Member wrote this law. He is a good guy but wrong on this. A carbon tax would make much more sense. And it wouldn't get much opposition in NYC.
Ken Schultz once commented that this was the reason that far more people deny climate change than deny string theory.
Zzz...
My state offers up to $120,000 in 0% loans to first-time-homebuyers of dark skin pigmentation due to systemic racism and slavery-- loans that don't have to be paid back.
Talk about taxing the present for the past...
Sounds like a pretty clear violation of the 14th Amendment's "equal protection of the laws" clause, and should subject the perpetrators to up to 10 years in federal prison.
Actually if there was past discrimination this is not just legal but ethical. And most states had blatant discrimination prior to 1968. Note the importance of that date in the law.
Nobody really cares about what NY (etc) does inside their own state. What matters is how it affects the rest of the country. Will they limit their suit to the amount of CO2 emitted in NY? Or are they going after the oil and gas companies nationally, esp since CO2 is, well, a gas, and doesn’t even pretend to respect state borders. But if that’s the case, they would be impermissibly interfering with interstate commerce.
In theory, worldwide. Not sure how Petrobras or Saudi Aramco or Pemex are going to get taxed.
And there is precedent with the federal Superfund law. A terrible law but it prevented a tax increase to pay for all the cleanups. I know that saying this will probably get me banned for life from this site, but sometimes a tax increase is the right thing to do.
It's like the latte-swilling liberals who wanted to tax Coca Cola and other soda pop companies to fight the obesity epidemic, even though Coca-Cola has been around since 1886 and didn't make anyone fat until a hundred years later, apparently.
That experiment is working real well in Philly. People just drive an extra mile outside the city to buy soda
Side note - they want people to switch to more fuel efficient cars or electric. People buy less gas. Since they buy less gas, the state gets less tax that is supposed to fix roads even though electric cars are heavier (and more damaging). Who would have thought that would happen?
(yes, I know the tax actually doesn't make it to roads).
Dem's solution - install GPS and tax per mile. Good times.
So what is your solution? Permanent potholes?