Mainers Demand World’s Largest Polluters Pay for Climate Damage

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 27, 2026

CONTACT: Gabe Cole, Communications Manager, gabe@maineconservation.org, (610) 574-5141

Mainers Demand World’s Largest Polluters Pay for Climate Damage

A Maine Climate Superfund would require the world’s largest oil and gas companies to pay for damage caused by destructive storms fueled by climate change

AUGUSTA, Maine — State and municipal leaders joined Mainers from across the state at the State House today for a Make Polluters Pay Action Day, calling on state lawmakers to pass LD 1870: A Maine Climate Superfund. 

The proposed Maine Climate Superfund would require the largest fossil fuel corporations, such as Exxon and Shell, responsible for more than 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions between 1995-2024 to pay a one-time fee for the climate damages they’ve caused to Maine neighborhoods and towns. Local oil or gas businesses would not be affected by the bill. The money raised would be directed toward infrastructure and resilience projects, helping cities and towns prepare for and recover from increasingly severe storms and weather events.

“L.D. 1870 is an opportunity for Maine to shift the mounting costs and burden of climate change  from taxpayers to the parties chiefly responsible for those costs,” said Sean Mahoney, Vice President and Senior Counsel for the Maine Conservation Law Foundation. “It would enact a simple and age-old principle that is already enshrined into state and federal law – that if you make a mess, you need to clean it up – extending that concept to those responsible for the climate pollution that has damaged and will continue to damage public health and the environment and in doing so provide Maine with the resources to respond to that harm.”

The Make Polluters Pay Day of Action featured a live, pop-up art gallery that used photographs and personal stories to share firsthand experiences of how climate change is impacting Maine—from coastal erosion and flooding to extreme weather—underscoring the urgent need for legislative action to hold corporations accountable.

“Our city infrastructure is not equipped to deal with the mounting costs and casualties of climate change,” said Jean Guzzetti, a Bath City Councilor who helped lead the effort last fall to pass a municipal resolution to support the establishment of a Maine Climate Superfund. “Taxpayers in cities, like mine, are on the hook for tens of millions of dollars to pay for climate resilience and adaptation projects, cleaning up a mess we didn’t cause. The companies responsible for worsening the climate crisis need to pay their share.”

Maine faces mounting costs from climate change, including storm damage, flooding, rising insurance premiums, and threats to working waterfronts, farmland, and drinking water. Supporters of the climate superfund proposal say taxpayers should not be left to shoulder these costs alone when they stem largely from decades of burning fossil fuels by multinational corporations.

“Maine towns and cities have already been paying for the immense costs of climate change,” said Senator Denise Tepler of Sagadahoc. “As the chair of the Environment and Natural Resources committee, I fully support LD 1870 and am committed to ensuring Maine taxpayers and communities do not have to continue to bear the costs of adapting to extreme weather, fueled by climate change, on their own.”

Participants at today’s Action Day emphasized that the climate crisis is already reshaping daily life across the state—from Southern Maine to Down East to Aroostook County—and that delay will only increase the financial and human toll.

Organizers concluded the event by urging lawmakers to advance the Maine Climate Superfund Act during the current legislative session and to stand with constituents who are already living with the consequences of climate change.

“Maine needs a climate superfund law,” said Jackson Chadwick, Advocacy Director for Maine Youth for Climate Justice. “The devastating impacts of climate change are here and will only get worse. The Maine legislature must act with urgency to protect communities and people before the next climate change-fueled storm threatens our towns, our neighborhoods, and our homes.”

Learn more about LD 1870 here. 

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This event is part of a national Week of Action (January 26-30) to Make Polluters Pay for the damage they’ve done to our climate and communities. The Week of Action will feature new bill introductions, op-eds, lobby days, social media pushes, floor speeches, press conferences, tele-town halls, rallies, petition deliveries, and more – all designed to start the year with as much momentum as possible.