In California's continuing war on businesses, a legislator recently introduced a bill to enact the "Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act of 2025", AB 1243 (Addis). This bill would establish the a program to be administered by the California Environmental Protection Agency to require fossil fuel polluters to pay their "fair share" of the damage caused by greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere between 1990 and 2024, inclusive, that resulted from the extraction, production, refining, sale, or combustion of fossil fuels or petroleum products. The bill would require Cal-EPA to "name names" of "responsible parties" within 90 days of the effective date of the law. The bill defines a "responsible party" as an entity with a majority ownership interest in a business engaged in extracting or refining fossil fuels that, during the covered period, did business California or otherwise had sufficient contact with the state, and is determined by the agency to be responsible for more than 1 billion metric tons of covered fossil fuel emissions, as defined, in aggregate globally, during the covered period. Notably, the bill provides"
The Secretary of State shall have the authority to revoke or suspend the business license of a responsible party that fails to comply with this part.
The bill does not define "business license". In any event, the Secretary of State does not issue business licenses. These are typically issued by local governments, such as cities and counties.
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