N.Y. is being sued by West Virginia over the Climate Change Superfund Act

And the Grieving Families Act is back after a third veto from Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Good afternoon — it’s Thursday, and National Frozen Yogurt Day.

In today’s CapCon:

• New York is being sued by a coalition of 22 states, who argue that their residents will bear the brunt of a new climate law.

• The Grieving Families Act is back after being vetoed a third time last year by Gov. Kathy Hochul.

• Rules & Regs: New York’s redlining response and a closer look at incidents of abuse at state-run facilities for people with health care and disability needs.

• New Bills of Note: Suspected terrorists with guns, firefighters with Parkinson’s and voter I.D. laws.

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Sen. Liz Krueger sponsored the Climate Change Superfund Act, which Hochul signed. (Will Waldron/Times Union)

⚖️ N.Y. sued by 22 states over the Climate Change Superfund Act

We sit here in our ivory towers and look down on people in West Virginia, that state’s attorney general said about New Yorkers on Thursday — literally.

“They sit there in their ivory towers and they look down on people in West Virginia,” West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey said.

McCuskey was talking about New York’s passage of the Climate Change Superfund Act, a new law that will charge companies responsible for the largest shares of carbon emissions in the Empire State.

That money will then be used to repair damage caused by extreme weather events tied to climate change and help develop infrastructure that would be more resilient to future threats. The law is intended to raise $75 billion in revenue over 25 years.

Fossil fuel companies are the main targets of the law, which only looks at emissions since 2000. Opponents of the law have posited that those companies will pass the cost along to consumers in their utility bills.

“The people in New York are intent on making those bills get larger and not smaller,” McCuskey said.

Their argument is that, because West Virginia is a top producer of coal and natural gas, the companies there will bear the cost. That would then be passed on to consumers in West Virginia, McCuskey said.

But McCuskey also made a wildly inaccurate claim about energy production in New York that Democrats here would be happy with if it were true. (Seven-day free trial here.)