Time is running out for Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act, but she is currently in talks with lawmakers negotiating potential chapter amendments to the bill as Dec. 31 looms.

A spokesperson for state Sen. Liz Krueger, who sponsors the bill, told Spectrum News 1 she is “optimistic.”

If passed, the legislation would in part require big fossil fuel companies to contribute $3 billion annually over 25 years which would ultimately put $75 billion toward the state’s climate change related costs.

NYPIRG’s Executive Director Blair Horner argued that the bill is “sensible policy” because if climate-related costs are going to be passed on to taxpayers through infrastructure repairs and other expenses, the state should step in.

“It’s saying to the big oil companies, we want you to pay, at least some of it. They’re making trillions of dollars in profits, it makes sense that they should pick up some of the costs,” he said.

Horner was stumping for the bill as part of a three-day climate action rally at the Capitol which includes speeches, singing, teach-ins, a youth led die-in, and “acts of civil disobedience."

One of the young people overseeing the rally is 17-year-old Helen Mancini, of Fridays For Future NYC.

“The future of paying for climate disasters is unknown and left on taxpayers, and that’s not something we can accept as a coalition of working people, of young people who have to grow up in this new environment,” she said.

Some participants told Spectrum News 1 they intended to remain in the Capitol building until the governor takes action, although the bill has not yet been called up by Hochul, and negotiations could potentially stretch into next week or beyond.

The deliberations over chapter amendments likely hinge in part on if the bill can stand up to the legal challenges, but Horner stressed that advocates are growing restless after a six-month waiting game that kicked off when the bill passed the assembly in June.

“Any time there are chapter amendments you never really know what’s going on, it’s more like we’re all outside waiting for the white smoke to come up out of the Capitol chimneys,” he said.

Republican state Assemblymember Phil Palmesano wants to see Hochul veto the bill and if she doesn’t, he thinks it will indeed get held up in court.

“There are many constitutional and legal challenges with this legislation, the refractiveness of it,” he said.

Even if the idea of punishing companies for what he describes as legal and permitted business practice does move forward, he expects ratepayers will foot the bill.

“Seventy-five billion dollars, $3 billion over the next 25 years, that’s going to be retroactive tax assessment fee or fine, of course it's going to be passed along,” he said.

Advocates of the bill have pointed to structural aspects of the it that intend prevent such rate increases, but Horner says the ultimate decision lies with the governor as the clock ticks down to the end of the year.

“It appears from everything we’ve heard that the governor and the legislature are all acting in good faith to figure out something so we’ll see, we’re encouraged,” he said.