AP photo Listen to this article A controversial measure that charges oil and gas companies billions of dollars was signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul Thursday. The Climate Change Superfund Act imposes a total of $3 billion a year in fees to the largest oil and gas firms for the negative impacts that fossil fuels have on climate change. The fund, which will last 25 years, aims to eventually collect a total of $75 billion. The state Department of Environmental Conservation will implement the program, notifying and collecting payments from companies with the highest amount of emissions. A company is considered to produce over 432,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide for every 1 million barrels of crude oil. The DEC will also identify infrastructure projects related to resiliency to climate change events that the superfund will give money towards. The state Department of Taxation and Finance and the state attorney general’s office will be tasked with enforcing the terms of the program. According to a statement from the Fiscal Policy Institute, some 30 to 40 oil and gas firms will be affected, including ExxonMobil and other U.S. companies and foreign firms such as Saudi Aramco and BP. “The eight largest fossil fuel companies earned nearly $400 billion in profits in 2022 alone, indicating that the $3 billion in total annual fees imposed by the superfund would be less than 1% of industry profits in some years,” according to the FPI statement. State Sen. Liz Krueger, lead sponsor of the legislation, said repairing from and preparing for extreme weather caused by climate change will cost more than half a trillion dollars statewide by 2050. “That’s over $65,000 per household, and that’s on top of the disruption, injury, and death that the climate crisis is causing in every corner of […]