Oil Companies May Soon Be Forced to Pay for the Long-Term Environmental Damage They’re Wreaking

Will the oil companies attack the living hell out of Vermont’s new law?  Of course.  Will the legislation survive the onslaught of law suits that Big Oil brings against it?  Probably not.

But the point is that it’s the first attempt in the United States to internalize the externalities of burning hydrocarbons, i.e., prohibiting the fossil fuel boys from using the Earth’s atmosphere as their own private sewer.