Business
New York and Vermont Seek to Impose a Retroactive Climate Tax
From Heartland Daily News
By Joshua Loucks for the Cato Institute.
Energy producers will be subject to retroactive taxes in New York if the state assembly passes Senate Bill S2129A, known as the “Climate Change Superfund Act.” The superfund legislation seeks to impose a retroactive tax on energy companies that have emitted greenhouse gases (GHGs) and operated within the state over the last seventy years.
If passed, the new law will impose $75 billion in repayment fees for “historical polluters,” who lawmakers assert are primarily responsible for climate change damages within the state. The state will “assign liability to and require compensation from companies commensurate with their emissions” over the last “70 years or more.” The bill would establish a standard of strict liability, stating that “companies are required to pay into the fund because the use of their products caused the pollution. No finding of wrongdoing is required.”
New York is not alone in this effort. Superfunds built on retroactive taxes on GHG emissions are becoming increasingly popular. Vermont recently enacted similar legislation, S.259 (Act 122), titled the “Climate Superfund Act,” in which the state also retroactively taxes energy producers for historic emissions. Similar bills have also been introduced in Maryland and Massachusetts.
Climate superfund legislation seems to have one purpose: to raise revenue by taxing a politically unpopular industry. Under the New York law, fossil fuel‐producing energy companies would be taxed billions of dollars retroactively for engaging in legal and necessary behavior. For example, the seventy‐year retroactive tax would conceivably apply to any company—going back to 1954—that used fossil fuels to generate electricity or produced fuel for New York drivers.
The typical “economic efficiency” arguments for taxing an externality go out the window with the New York and Vermont approach, for at least two reasons. First, the goal of a blackboard or textbook approach to a carbon tax is to internalize the GHG externality. To apply such a tax accurately, the government would need to calculate the social cost of carbon (SCC).
Unfortunately, estimating the SCC is methodologically complex and open to wide ranges of estimates. As a result, the SCC is theoretically very useful but practically impossible to calculate with any reasonable degree of precision.
Second, the retroactive nature of these climate superfunds undermines the very incentives a textbook tax on externalities would promote. A carbon tax’s central feature is that it is intended to reduce externalities from current and future activity by changing incentives. However, by imposing retroactive taxes, the New York and Vermont legislation will not impact emitters’ future behavior in a way that mimics a textbook carbon tax or improves economic outcomes.
Arbitrary and retroactive taxes can, however, raise prices for consumers by increasing policy uncertainty, affecting firm profitability, and reducing investment (or causing investors to flee GHG‐emitting industries in the state altogether). Residents in both New York and Vermont already pay over 30 percent more than the US average in residential electricity prices, and this legislation will not lower these costs to consumers.
Climate superfunds are not a serious attempt to solve environmental challenges but rather a way to raise government revenue while unfairly punishing an entire industry (one whose actions the New York legislation claims “have been unconscionable, closely reflecting the strategy of denial, deflection, and delay used by the tobacco industry”).
Fossil fuel companies enabled GHG emissions, of course, but they also empowered significant growth, mobility, and prosperity. The punitive nature of the policy is laid bare by the fact that neither New York nor Vermont used a generic SCC or an evidentiary proceeding to calculate precise damages.
Finally, establishing a standard in which “no finding of wrongdoing is required” to levy fines against historical actions that were (and still are) legally permitted sets a dangerous precedent for what governments can do, not only to businesses that have produced fossil fuels but also to individuals who have consumed them.
Cato research associate Joshua Loucks contributed to this post.
Originally published by the Cato Institute. Republished with permission under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This article supplied by Troy Media.
Canadians must consider how closer EU ties could erode national control and economic sovereignty
As Prime Minister Mark Carney attempts to deepen Canada’s relationship with the European Union and other supranational institutions, Canadians should be asking a hard question: how much of our national independence are we prepared to give away? If you want a glimpse of what happens when a country loses control over its currency, trade and democratic accountability, you need only look to Bulgaria.
On June 8, 2025, thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets in front of the country’s National Bank. Their message was clear: they want to keep the lev and stop the forced adoption of the euro, scheduled for Jan. 1, 2026.
Bulgaria, a southeastern European country and EU member since 2007, is preparing to join the eurozone—a bloc of 20 countries that share the euro as a common currency. The move would bind Bulgaria to the economic decisions of the European Central Bank, replacing its national currency with one managed from Brussels and Frankfurt.
The protest movement is a vivid example of the tensions that arise when national identity collides with centralized policy-making. It was organized by Vazrazdane, a nationalist, eurosceptic political party that has gained support by opposing what it sees as the erosion of Bulgarian sovereignty through European integration. Similar demonstrations took place in cities across the country.
At the heart of the unrest is a call for democratic accountability. Vazrazdane leader Konstantin Kostadinov appealed directly to EU leaders, arguing that Bulgarians should not be forced into the eurozone without a public vote. He noted that in Italy, referendums on the euro were allowed with support from less than one per cent of citizens, while in Bulgaria, more than 10 per cent calling for a referendum have been ignored.
Protesters warned that abandoning the lev without a public vote would amount to a betrayal of democracy. “If there is no lev, there is no Bulgaria,” some chanted. For them, the lev is not just a currency: it is a symbol of national independence.
Their fears are not unfounded. Across the eurozone, several countries have experienced higher prices and reduced purchasing power after adopting the euro. The loss of domestic control over monetary policy has led to economic decisions being dictated from afar. Inflation, declining living standards and external dependency are real concerns.
Canada is not Bulgaria. But it is not immune to the same dynamics. Through trade agreements, regulatory convergence and global commitments, Canada has already surrendered meaningful control over its economy and borders. Canadians rarely debate these trade-offs publicly, and almost never vote on them directly.
Carney, a former central banker with deep ties to global finance, has made clear his intention to align more closely with the European Union on economic and security matters. While partnership is not inherently wrong, it must come with strong democratic oversight. Canadians should not allow fundamental shifts in sovereignty to be handed off quietly to international bodies or technocratic elites.
What’s happening in Bulgaria is not just about the euro—it’s about a people demanding the right to chart their own course. Canadians should take note. Sovereignty is not lost in one dramatic act. It erodes incrementally: through treaties we don’t read, agreements we don’t question, and decisions made without our consent.
If democracy and national control still matter to Canadians, they would do well to pay attention.
Isidoros Karderinis was born in Athens, Greece. He is a journalist, foreign press correspondent, economist, novelist and poet. He is accredited by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a foreign press correspondent and has built a distinguished career in journalism and literature.
Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.
From LifeSiteNews
Pornhub has taken down 91% of its images and videos and a huge portion of the last 9% will be gone by June 30 because it never verified the age or consent of those in the videos.
Despite an aggressive PR operation to persuade lawmakers that they have reformed, Pornhub is having a very bad year.
On May 29, it was reported that the European Commission is investigating the pornography giant and three other sites for failing to verify the ages of users.
The investigation, which comes after a letter sent to the companies last June asking what measures they have taken to protect minors, is being carried out under the Digital Services Act. The DSA came into effect in November 2022 and directs platforms to ensure “appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety, and security of minors, on their service” and implement “targeted measures to protect the rights of the child, including age verification and parental control tools, tools aimed at helping minors signal abuse or obtain support, as appropriate.”
According to France24: “The commission, the EU’s tech regulator, accused the platforms of not having ‘appropriate; age verification tools to prevent children from being exposed to pornography. An AFP correspondent only had to click a button on Tuesday stating they were older than 18 without any further checks to gain access to each of the four platforms.”
Indeed, Pornhub’s alleged safety mechanisms are a sick joke, and Pornhub executives have often revealed the real reason behind their opposition to safeguards: It limits their traffic.
Meanwhile, Pornhub — and other sites owned by parent company Aylo — are blocking their content in France in response to a new age verification law that came into effect on June 7. Solomon Friedman, Aylo’s point man in the Pornhub propaganda war, stated that the French law was “potentially privacy infringing” and “dangerous,” earning a scathing rebuke from France’s deputy minister for digital technology Clara Chappaz.
“We’re not stigmatizing adults who want to consume this content, but we mustn’t do so at the expense of protecting our children,” she said, adding later, “Lying when one does not want to comply with the law and holding others hostage is unacceptable. If Aylo would rather leave France than apply our law, they are free to do so.” According to the French media regulator Arcom, 2.3 million French minors visit pornographic sites every month.
Incidentally, anti-Pornhub activist Laila Mickelwait reported another major breakthrough on June 7. “P*rnhub is deleting much of what’s left of the of the site by June 30,” she wrote on X. “Together we have collectively forced this sex trafficking and rape crime scene to take down 91% of the entire site, totaling 50+ million videos and images. Now a significant portion of the remaining 9% will be GONE this month in what will be the second biggest takedown of P*rnhub content since December 2020.”
“The reason for the mass deletion is that they never verified the age or consent of the individuals depicted in the images and videos, and therefore the site is still awash with real sexual crime,” she added. “Since the fight began in 2020, 91% of P*rnhub has been taken down — over 50 million images and videos. Now a huge portion of the last 9% will be gone by June 30 because P*rnhub never verified the age or consent of those in the videos and the site is a crime scene.”
Mickelwait has long called for the shutdown of Pornhub and the prosecution of those involved in its operation. This second mass deletion of content, as welcome as it is, reeks of a desperate attempt to eliminate the evidence of Pornhub’s crimes.
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