Make polluters pay: The hidden climate tax crushing N.J. families |Opinion

By Ben Dziobek and Sunni Vargas

Families across New Jersey are paying the price for climate disasters that corporate polluters created, and it’s only getting more expensive.

The more frequent and severe storms that flood our homes and businesses, the extreme heat that sends seniors to the emergency room, and the unhealthy air quality that triggers childhood asthma attacks are costing families incalculable sums of money.

They deserve compensation. And now there’s legislation that would do just that.

The Climate Superfund Act would require our state’s biggest polluters to finally pay for the damages they created so that working families no longer have to.

This landmark legislation is modeled on the federal Superfund program, which has successfully held toxic polluters accountable for decades across the country. It’s designed to protect working families and local businesses by making corporations — not utilities or households — pay their fair share.

Between 2011 and 2024, New Jersey faced 14 federally declared climate disasters costing taxpayers more than $7.9 billion to rebuild. That’s billions taken from people who had nothing to do with the climate crisis while the big corporations that caused it continue to profit from it.

In towns like Manville in Somerset County, flooding and buyouts have reduced property tax collections by millions of dollars annually — a massive gap that forces everyone else to pay more just to keep schools funded and firehouses open. The average New Jersey property tax bill topped $10,000 in 2024, a record high, thanks in part to infrastructure costs from repeated storms.

That is the real hidden “climate tax.”

Yet corporate polluters, eager to protect their record profits, are fighting against this bill, claiming that they will be forced to pass any additional costs to consumers as if those costs aren’t passed onto consumers already. They also conveniently forget to mention the $13:1 benefits of new resilience projects to prevent future flooding disasters, and the potential for new, good-paying union jobs that would come from those projects.

But isn’t that precisely what corporations have been doing all along? Oil, gas, and utility giants have been raking in record profits while quietly offloading their mess onto everyone else.

Here’s the economic reality for this bill: Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has made it clear that the Climate Superfund Act will not raise gas or energy prices in our state. Gasoline prices are set by global crude markets, not local fees levied by our state to recoup money spent recovering from past damages.

As Stiglitz put it, “There should be no shifting of costs to consumers.”

And he’s not alone: Eight other prominent economists recently filed a legal brief detailing the economic benefits of similar legislation in Vermont. Their conclusion was simple. Claims of consumer harm are ‘implausible’ and inconsistent with the economic reality.

Let’s not forget, these same companies have known about the dangers of fossil fuel pollution for decades. Their own scientists warned them. But instead of changing course, they doubled down on polluting our communities. That’s a calculated betrayal and shows that they have only ever been motivated by profits, not what’s best for all of us.

Low-income neighborhoods and communities of color are often hit first and worst by climate disasters, and this is no coincidence. Due to the long history of redlining, these communities pay higher percentages of their income in property taxes, see their housing devalued by flooding, and suffer from pollution-related health costs.

And while families struggle, Big Oil thrives. Five of the largest oil companies funneled a record $114 billion to shareholders in 2023 alone. These are not fragile companies scraping by but some of the biggest and most profitable corporations in history, and they’re spending fortunes to enrich themselves and block any semblance of accountability.

Don’t let polluters cry poverty. What’s really unfair is a system where corporations privatize profits while shifting all of their costs onto the public. What’s unjust is CEOs pocketing millions while families lose their homes. What’s unfair is watching corporate lobbyists cry crocodile tears about affordability while they push rate hikes, utility surcharges, and tax abatements that bleed residents dry.

If lawmakers want to prove they’re serious about affordability for working families, or about creating good-paying union jobs, they should pass the Climate Superfund Act.

It’s time for state lawmakers to side with the people, not the polluters.

Ben Dziobek serves as executive director of Climate Revolution Action Network.

Sunni Vargas serves as New Jersey Working Families’ political director.