United States v. New York

Action brought by the United States asserting that New York's Climate Change Superfund Act is unconstitutional and unenforceable.

On September 23, 2026, in the United States and EPA’s challenge to the Climate Change Superfund Act, the federal district court for the Southern District of New York also held that the Act was preempted under the Clean Air Act and the foreign affairs doctrine. The court first concluded that the United States had standing for these two claims “to vindicate its sovereign authority to create and enforce a regulatory scheme pursuant to the Clean Air Act and its exclusive authority to conduct foreign affairs.” With respect to the Clean Air Act preemption claim, the court found that the United States asserted a concrete harm because the Act “provides for the levying of substantial fees on entities without regard to the manner in which the federal government has chosen to balance” competing environmental, energy, and economic interests and “for a time period when those emissions were regulated by the EPA.” With respect to foreign affairs preemption, the court found that the United States asserted a cognizable and concrete injury based on alleged interference with “the work of the federal government in forging international agreements consistent with national policy addressing climate change and greenhouse gas emissions” and also alleged conflict with the U.S.’s “longstanding foreign policy position against liability and compensation schemes for emissions.” The court further found that these asserted injuries were particularized to the United States, actual and imminent, fairly traceable to the defendants charged with enforcing the Act, and redressable by the court. On the merits of the Clean Air Act preemption claim, the court rejected the defendants’ argument that the Act’s compensation scheme for past greenhouse gas emissions did not regulate emissions. The court described a “backdrop” of precedent establishing that federal common law, rather than state law, traditionally governed interstate air pollution; that the Clean Air Act displaced attempts to abate greenhouse gas emissions under federal common law; and that suits asserting state common law claims to regulate interstate greenhouse gas emissions were also barred. Citing City of New York v. Chevron Corp., the court concluded that because the Climate Change Superfund Act “treads on the same ground as the federal common law governing interstate air pollution disputes,” it was only necessary to determine that the Clean Air Act did not authorize the Act to find that the Act was preempted. Again citing City of New York as controlling, the court concluded that the Clean Air Act did not authorize the Act. The court further concluded that EPA’s rescission of the Clean Air Act endangerment finding for greenhouse gases from motor vehicles did not alter this conclusion. On the merits of the foreign affairs preemption claim, the court concluded that the preemption doctrine applied because (1) the Climate Change Superfund Act “does not regulate an area of traditional state responsibility” because “[t]he harm caused by global warming ‘presents a uniquely international problem’ that is ‘not well-suited to the application of state law,” and (2) the Act “intrudes on the federal government’s foreign affairs powers” because addressing global greenhouse gas emissions is the subject of foreign policy. The court found that the U.S.’s announced intent to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change “does not make the regulation of greenhouse gases emitted from extraterritorial sources any less a matter falling within the sphere of the foreign policy of the United States.” The court therefore concluded that the Act, “as applied to foreign activities of fossil fuel producers, is field-preempted under the foreign affairs doctrine.” The court dismissed the U.S.’s remaining claims without prejudice.

Action brought by the United States asserting that New York's Climate Change Superfund Act is unconstitutional and unenforceable.

Action brought by the United States asserting that New York's Climate Change Superfund Act is unconstitutional and unenforceable.