Vermont's climate superfund law pushes forward as federal lawsuits seek to block it

Source: AP

Updated 2:03 PM EST, December 26, 2025


For Sue Minter, Vermont’s newly appointed climate superfund specialist, the floods started early.

Back in 2011, when Tropical Storm Irene thrashed Vermont, Minter — serving as the state’s deputy secretary of transportation — helped rebuild the 600 miles of destroyed road and hundreds of damaged bridges. Just over a decade later, as executive director for Capstone Community Action, a regional anti-poverty nonprofit, she helped low-income and vulnerable Vermonters displaced by the 2023 and 2024 floods.

With a history of public service dating back to the 1990s, Minter was tapped in September to be the program manager for the state’s new Climate Superfund Act. That legislation, overshadowed by a pair of federal lawsuits seeking to dismantle the law, seeks to hold major oil companies accountable for their pollution. Now, Minter is pushing the law forward while the courts consider whether the state law will survive. On Monday, the federal government again asked the courts to void the law.

The Vermont law imposes a one-time fee on fossil fuel companies for emissions between 1995 and 2024. A company qualifies as a payee if its extraction or refining of fossil fuels caused at least one billion metric tons of carbon emissions over the last two decades.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/vermont-sue-minter-chris-van-hollen-climate-change-industry-regulation-2e92da784fbacc1b94b20a7711de8495