Report: Climate Lawsuits Could Raise Household Energy Bills by Nearly $1,500 a Year A new report from the Heritage Foundation and Power The Future estimates that climate lawsuits and superfund laws could cost the average American household nearly $1,500 annually, or almost $15,000 over a decade. A new report warns that climate lawsuits and climate superfund laws could raise the average American household's annual energy bill by almost $1,500 per year and nearly $15,000 over a decade. The findings were discussed by Heritage Foundation Chief Economist EJ Antoni and Power The Future founder Daniel Turner, who spoke to Fox News Digital about their new report estimating the potential cost to American families if these efforts succeed. New energy bills are high now, and the report says the situation could worsen if climate activists get their way.Nationwide Lawfare Campaign Increases CostsThey have launched a massive nationwide campaign of lawfare, which if successful would drive up costs for households at the pump and the meter. The Supreme Court is currently hearing one such case, Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County. The campaign has three avenues of attack: tort litigation, state climate superfund statutes, and federal legislation.Each category represents enormous charges on upstream suppliers, which will then move downstream to households. The litigation campaign includes filings by 11 states, Washington, D.C. , and dozens of cities. New York and Vermont legislated this liability into existence through climate superfund laws.New York's law is capped at $75 billion, while Vermont's leaves liabilities uncapped. A dozen other states have tried similar penalties. Members of Congress have also proposed the so-called Polluters Pay Climate Fund Act, which would confiscate $1 trillion over 10 years. Supporters insist none of this will hit families' wallets.Shareholders Cannot Avoid Passing CostsThey say assessments target past production and that shareholders will pay for it. The report says those claims do not stand up to the facts. Businesses must pass costs to consumers, the report argues, regardless of whether a government bureaucrat decrees specific costs to be from yesteryear. Firms must also price future risk, which would increase dramatically if business could be retroactively punished for legal activity 30 years ago.For many power plants and energy infrastructure projects, which take decades to pay off and recoup initial investments, this additional risk means such projects may never even be undertaken. For those that do move forward, firms must charge consumers higher prices to counter the additional risk of fickle government potentially imposing massive fines. Even if costs were confined to shareholders, as opposed to ratepayers or drivers filling up their tanks, those shareholders are still middle-class Americans.Energy stocks are held in pension funds and 401(k)s. Making shareholders pay means raiding retirement accounts to finance the pet projects of climate activists, like carbon taxes. One of the lawyers who helped launch this climate lawfare crusade, David Bookbinder, even admitted that the desired outcome is an indirect carbon tax. The analysis puts the tab for all these lawsuits and legislative efforts at roughly $194 billion annually.That is an average of about 41 cents on a gallon of gasoline and 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, or a 9% jump in electricity rates. The 41 cents per gallon is about four-fifths of all the federal and state gas taxes consumers already pay. The timing could not be worse, with electricity prices already up 7% last year and 9% again early this year.Regressive Impact Hits Low Income FamiliesOne in six households is behind on its energy bills, and one in four has cut spending on food or medicine to pay for them. Since low-income families spend nearly four times the share of their income on energy as everyone else, the report says the pseudo-carbon taxes of climate activists would be highly regressive. Perhaps to hide this fact, New Jersey legislators renamed their $50 billion assessment to the proposed Polluters Pay to Make New Jersey More Affordable Act.Politicians could be held accountable by voters for such an unpopular and costly measure. Conversely, a carbon tax cobbled together from court verdicts and retroactive assessments is an unconstitutional way to short-circuit voters' ultimate veto. That is why Maryland's Supreme Court threw out three of these suits early this year, observing that even precautions like perfect warning labels would have been a drop in the bucket of global emissions.But lawfare is not only about winning because the process is the punishment. Dismissals do not absolve legal fees and other costs. Risk premiums rise in the face of lawfare, even when energy companies consistently win, and the associated costs eventually reach customers' bills. The better path is to produce more energy, not less, and thereby lower costs for consumers.Reliable power plants need to keep running and new ones should be added to fuel growing demand. The alternative from the other side is a $1,500 annual tax on households that no one voted for, according to the report's authors. E.J. Antoni, Ph.D., is Chief Economist and the Richard F. Aster fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a senior fellow at Unleash Prosperity. Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He also runs a sheep and cattle farm in rural Virginia.