Well, more than a week after deadly flooding wreaked havoc on the town of Plainfield, residents, state and local officials today rallied calling on lawmakers to pass the Climate Superfund Act.

It's in order to help pay for some of the cleanup and recovery efforts there.

The bill would force fossil fuel companies that have contributed to the warming of the planet to pay for damage caused by storms intensified by climate change.

Ted Goldberg is on the ground in Plainfield with the latest.

Ted.

Brianna, people in the city of Plainfield are still recovering after last week's flash flood.

Throughout the city, water levels were on average about three feet higher than normal.

And when I drove in here today, I passed multiple houses that had rotten furniture sitting on the driveway or out on the streets.

People came to Plainfield City Hall today hoping they can rebuild with help from the Climate Superfund Act.

In the past, would find companies based on their greenhouse gas emissions since 1995.

These are not isolated incidents.

They are a warning sign of a planet in crisis.

One that is heating up faster than ever because of decades of burning coal, oil and gas.

These are not just natural disasters.

These are political outcomes, direct results of systems that protect corporate profits over people.

The fossil fuel industry has known for decades that their products cause climate change.

That's no secret.

They have known this all along.

They chose to lie.

This is your life.

This is the lives of your children and your grandchildren.

And as so many speakers have said, we're not doing enough in New Jersey.

Who cares what they do in Washington?

Who cares what the fascists want to do?

States can act.

States can act.

Similar laws have been passed in other states, but the Trump administration signed an executive order directing the U.S. Attorney General to go after states with laws regarding climate change.

Vermont and New York are defending their climate superfund laws in court, while leaders and advocates here are confident those laws will stand.

We fully expect court challenges, but at the same time, we're going to make this bulletproof.

We're watching what the courts might think is less than sustainable, and we're making sure that that's not an aspect of our bill.

So we're kind of taking the best of Vermont, best of New York, and being certain, again, that's where I'm getting the bulletproof from.

There is strong precedent for assessing polluters for their pollution and for the damages caused by that.

It's going to work further than the original federal superfund bill, as well as the New Jersey State Spill Act, both of which held polluters liable for their historical pollution.

So what would a superfund be spent on if it passes?

Things that municipalities and the state might not be able to afford.

It will fund the rebuilding of our infrastructure, support disaster relief, and protect our communities from the storms ahead.

As individuals, as municipal councils, even as counties, we lack the funds to properly repair what has been damaged and to remediate against future disasters.

We just, we can't do it.

Not alone.

These funds will go directly to climate adaption, flood protections, stronger infrastructure, and emergency response systems for overburdened towns like Raleway and others.

But this is not just about Raleway.

It's about every town along the Raleway River, about every town that experienced extreme flooding.

Upgrade our retention systems to be able to get people out of harm's way, to better predict storms, even just things like having more cooling centers and more microgrids.

The business community has pushed back on this bill, saying it's unfair to penalize companies for doing things that have been legal over the last couple of decades.

There's also been pushback from some saying that this bill will make energy prices in New Jersey more expensive, a longstanding debate that doesn't look like it's going away any time soon.

In Plainfield, I'm Ted Goldberg, NJ Spotlight News.

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