Last week, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a back-door tax increase that charges fossil fuel companies for their carbon emissions. New York now joins Vermont as the second state with a “climate Superfund” law that is spuriously designed to pay for “extreme weather” damage caused by climate change.

Expect other Blue states such as Maryland and Massachusetts to follow. State Senator Liz Kreuger, the bill’s New York sponsor, claims the new Trump administration means other states must now act because “literally the sky is falling when you start to talk about climate issues.”

(Someone should teach the Senator what the word “literally” means.)

This tax won’t be paid by the oil and coal companies, but rather middle class residents in these blue states. The New York carbon tax is expected to translate into a first-year gas price increase of 12 cents a gallon, but it’s designed to quickly go up to a much higher level.

These “green climate” taxes are just a virtue-signaling revenue grab by progressive politicians who want to tax and spend more and feel good about themselves. There is no state politicians can change the temperature of a planet with eight billion people.  But they can wreck their local economy.