Polluters Pay is a new bill in the MA legislature sponsored by Sen Eldridge and Rep Owens that would require top polluters to contribute to a superfund used to pay for climate-related damages in Massachusetts. 77% of Americans support holding oil and gas companies accountable for climate related damages. Massachusetts follows Maryland and New York in submitting statewide legislation to hold companies accountable to the polluters pay principle.

Polluters Pay is designed to avoid passing costs on to consumers. Since this bill targets the largest fossil fuel corporations, they will still have to compete with other companies and thus will not be able to raise their prices. We are also only targeting these companies for harm already caused, asking them to contribute profits already earned, so it should not affect prices going forward–in fact, it would require illegal collusion for these companies to pass on any of the costs of Polluters Pay to consumers.

Polluters Pay doesn’t put a price on future emissions, but instead asks big polluters to pay a fee based on their share of historic emissions. This is easier to implement and ensures that the costs are borne by the largest fossil fuel companies, rather than the public at large.