Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act of 2025.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary does not provide specific details on how funds will be allocated or which companies are responsible parties until further studies and determinations by the agency.

Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act

The Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act requires fossil fuel companies responsible for significant emissions to pay into a fund that will help California address climate change damages.

What This Bill Does

• Establishes the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Program administered by the California Environmental Protection Agency.
• Requires the agency to publish a list of 'responsible parties' within 90 days of the act's effective date, identifying companies with significant fossil fuel emissions between 1990 and 2024.
• Directs the agency to conduct a climate cost study within one year of the act’s effective date, quantifying total damage from January 1, 1990, through December 31, 2045.
• Requires responsible parties to pay their proportionate share of the total damage amount into the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Fund in the State Treasury.
• Allocates funds for projects and programs that mitigate or adapt to climate change damages.

Who It Names or Affects

• Fossil fuel companies with significant emissions between 1990 and 2024, as determined by the California Environmental Protection Agency.
• The state of California, which will use funds collected from responsible parties for addressing climate damage.

Terms To Know

Responsible Parties

Entities with a majority ownership interest in businesses engaged in extracting or refining fossil fuels that emitted more than one billion metric tons of covered emissions globally during the period between 1990 and 2024.

Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Fund

A special fund created to collect money from companies responsible for significant climate damage, which will be used to address those damages in California.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify the exact amount each company must pay until the agency completes its study.
• It is unclear what specific projects and programs will qualify for funding from the new fund.
• The effectiveness of this program in reducing future climate damage remains to be seen.

Official Summary Text

SB 684, as amended, Menjivar.
Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act of 2025.
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, until January 1, 2031, authorizes the State Air Resources Board to adopt a regulation establishing a system of market-based declining aggregate emissions limits for sources or categories of sources that emit greenhouse gases (market-based compliance mechanism) that meets certain requirements. Existing law establishes the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from the auction or sales of allowances as a part of a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited into the fund and requires the Legislature to appropriate moneys in the fund for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the state, as provided.
Existing law, the California Climate Crisis Act, declares that it is the policy of the state both to
achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, but no later than 2045, and achieve and maintain net-negative greenhouse gas emissions thereafter, and to ensure that by 2045, statewide anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to at least 85% below the 1990 levels.
This bill would enact the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act of 2025 and would establish the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Program to be administered by the California Environmental Protection Agency to require fossil fuel polluters to pay their fair share of the damage caused by greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere during the covered period, which the bill would define as the time period between the 1990 and 2024 calendar years, inclusive, resulting from the extraction, production, refining, sale, or combustion of fossil fuels or petroleum products, to relieve a portion of the burden to address cost borne by current and future California taxpayers. The bill would
require the agency, within 90 days of the effective date of the act, to determine and publish a list of responsible parties, which the bill would define as an entity with a majority ownership interest in a business engaged in extracting or refining fossil fuels that, during the covered period, did business in the state or otherwise had sufficient contact with the state, and is determined by the agency to be responsible for more than 1,000,000,000 metric tons of covered fossil fuel emissions, as defined, in aggregate globally, during the covered period.
This bill would require the agency, within one year of the effective date of the act, to conduct and complete a climate cost study to, among other things, quantify the total damage amount, which the bill would define as all past and future climate harms and damages to the state from January 1, 1990, through December 31, 2045, inclusive. The bill would require the agency to update the climate cost study, not less
frequently than every 5 years, through January 1, 2045, as provided. The bill would require the agency, within 60 days of the completion of the climate cost study, to determine and assess, as provided, a cost recovery demand for each responsible party listed, which represents the responsible party’s proportionate share of the total damage amount. The bill would require responsible parties to pay their cost recovery demand, as provided. The bill would require the collected cost recovery demands to be deposited in the Polluters Pay Climate
Superfund Fund,
Superfund,
which the bill would create in the State Treasury. The bill would, upon appropriation by the Legislature, require moneys in the
fund
Polluters Pay Climate Superfund
be expended for, among other things, qualifying expenditures, which the bill would define to include expenditures for projects and programs to mitigate, adapt, or respond to the damages and costs caused to the state from climate change. The bill would require the agency to determine the initial implementation costs for the act, as provided, and would require the agency to assess an amount allocated equitably among responsible parties to cover those costs.
This bill would require the Director of Finance, within 45 days of the effective date of the act, to perform an initial assessment of the reasonable and appropriate initial implementation costs that will be incurred by the agency.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

Current Bill Text

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