Gov. Hochul

Retreat on the Climate Law Is Tone Deaf & Foolhardy

/ Peter Bardaglio / Leave a comment

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s ongoing effort to slow key elements of New York’s renewable-energy transition could not come at a more tone-deaf moment. Across the United States, solar and wind power are accelerating at record pace, costs continue to decline, and the clean-energy economy is rapidly becoming one of the nation’s strongest engines of investment and job growth. New York, once positioned as a national climate leader, now seems to be drifting backward.

The contrast is striking.

The Boom in Renewable Energy

In March 2026, renewable energy sources generated more electricity nationally than gas for the first full month in U.S. history. Analysts project that 93% of all new electric-generating capacity added in 2026 will come from solar, wind, and battery storage. Even amid full-scale political attacks on clean energy at the federal level, market forces continue propelling renewables forward because they are increasingly cheaper, faster to deploy, and more attractive to investors than fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, Gov. Hochul has proposed delaying or weakening parts of New York’s landmark 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), the law that established ambitious mandates for renewable electricity and greenhouse-gas reductions. Her administration argues that the changes are necessary to address affordability concerns and implementation challenges.

Rising utility bills are a legitimate public concern, especially for working families already stretched thin by inflation. But retreating from renewable energy is the wrong response.

The real problem is not that New York has embraced clean energy too aggressively. The problem is that the state has moved too slowly to build the infrastructure needed to make the transition work. Transmission bottlenecks, permitting delays, regulatory complexity, deferred maintenance, and years of indecision have hindered progress on offshore wind, solar expansion, and grid modernization. Delaying climate targets now risks compounding those failures rather than effectively addressing them.

Pulling Back from Renewables Wrong Move

New York’s clean-energy goals reflect the realities of climate science, economic competition, and public health. Extreme weather, flooding, heat waves, and air pollution already impose enormous costs on communities across the state. Pulling back from renewable energy will not insulate New Yorkers from those costs; it will worsen them over time.

Furthermore, the state risks losing economic leadership at precisely the moment when clean energy is becoming a dominant global industry. Texas, not exactly the most progressive state when it comes to climate action, now leads the nation in wind generation and ranks near the top in solar deployment because it prioritized transmission expansion and streamlined project development. Other states are aggressively competing for manufacturing plants, battery facilities, and renewable-energy investment. If New York signals policy uncertainty, investors and developers will simply move elsewhere.

Ironically, backing away from renewables will ultimately increase energy costs rather than reduce them. Fossil-fuel markets remain volatile and vulnerable to geopolitical shocks. Solar and wind, by contrast, have no fuel costs once installed. Over time, a diversified renewable grid paired with battery storage offers greater price stability and energy independence.

None of this means the state should ignore affordability concerns. It should reassess how costs are distributed, expand energy-efficiency programs, protect low-income households, and accelerate grid upgrades. But there is a profound difference between improving implementation and abandoning ship.

New Yorkers should remember that the state has often provided critical leadership on such progressive reforms as labor protections, environmental stewardship, and public-health reform. The transition to clean energy is another such moment. History will not look kindly on leaders who failed to provide the necessary leadership to facilitate this transition.

Gov. Hochul still has time to change course. Rather than pursuing the foolhardy move to weaken climate commitments, she should focus on fixing the bureaucratic and infrastructure failures that have slowed progress. The clean-energy transition is happening whether New York participates fully or not. The only real question is whether the state intends to take part in that future or just sit on the sidelines.

Weakening NY’s Climate Law Is the Wrong Move

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Gov. Hochul is signaling that she wants to revise or delay parts of New York’s landmark 2019 Climate Law. Her justification for doing so involve  concerns about energy affordability and implementation challenges. To put it bluntly, weakening the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) would be a mistake. Doing so would undermine climate progress, create policy uncertainty, and ultimately cost New Yorkers more in the long run.
Gov. Kathy Hochul

When the CLCPA passed, it placed the state at the forefront of national and global leadership in climate policy. The law was designed not just to cut emissions but also to drive innovation, investment, and job creation in clean energy industries. By setting ambitious targets, the state signaled to businesses, utilities, and communities that the future would be built on renewable power and electrification.

 If the state retreats from those commitments now, it will send the opposite message, declaring that climate goals are negotiable when political pressure rises. This kind of backtracking could discourage clean-energy investment and slow the development of industries such as offshore wind, energy storage, and green infrastructure.

Critics argue that New York’s climate targets are unrealistic or too expensive. But in many cases the state’s challenges stem from delays in implementation rather than flaws in the law itself. Reports have found that state agencies have fallen behind in issuing regulations and coordinating policies required to meet the law’s mandates.

Changing the targets now would reward bureaucratic delay instead of addressing the underlying issue: the state has not moved quickly enough to build the renewable energy projects, transmission lines, and electrification programs needed to meet its goals.

Rather than weakening the law, the Hochul administration should accelerate permitting, invest in grid infrastructure, and coordinate state agencies to deliver the clean-energy transition that lawmakers already promised.

The governor has pointed to rising energy costs as a reason to reconsider aspects of the climate law. A state analysis suggested that compliance could increase household energy costs in some scenarios. But focusing only on short-term costs misses the larger economic picture.

Climate change already imposes enormous costs on New York through extreme weather, flooding, heat waves, and infrastructure damage. Investing in renewable energy, electrification, and resilience now is far cheaper than dealing with the escalating consequences of a runaway climate crisis.

Moreover, renewable energy technologies continue to decline in price. Solar, wind, and battery storage are becoming increasingly competitive with fossil fuels. Delaying the transition could lock New York into expensive fossil infrastructure that will eventually have to be replaced anyway.

The legislation was designed not only to reduce emissions but also to address environmental inequities. It requires that at least 35 percent of clean-energy investments benefit disadvantaged communities that have historically suffered from pollution and industrial activity.

Rolling back climate commitments risks prolonging the harmful effects of fossil fuel infrastructure in those same communities, especially urban neighborhoods near highways, power plants, and industrial facilities. Weakening the law would mean delaying the health benefits of cleaner air, lower asthma rates, and reduced exposure to pollution.

Major infrastructure transitions do not happen overnight. Transforming an energy system takes decades of planning, investment, and policy stability. Businesses, utilities, and local governments make decisions based on the expectation that climate policies will remain in place.

If New York begins rewriting its climate law just a few years after passing it, that stability disappears. Investors may hesitate to finance renewable projects, and communities may question whether the state will follow through on its promises.

The CLCPA was never meant to be easy. It was designed to meet the scale of the climate challenge facing New York and the world. Instead of weakening the law, state leaders should focus on implementing it effectively, addressing affordability concerns through smart policy, and ensuring that the transition to clean energy benefits all New Yorkers.

In the face of a global climate crisis, the worst possible response would be to retreat from the bold commitments that once made New York a leader.

A Victory (for now) on the NYS Climate Action Front

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There is so little good news in the world these days, especially regarding the climate crisis, that it’s worth paying attention when some comes along. Not just happy, greeting card talk, but substantive, positive developments.

Well, there was good news last Friday (October 24) and it’s worth focusing on. A state supreme court judge ruled that New York is violating its own 2019 climate law, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).

CLCPA Mandates

How can this possibly be good news?

Here’s why: it’s been clear for months now that Governor Hochul and her administration have been working hard at slow-walking the effort to to implement the CLCPA. This law mandated – not suggested, recommended, or advised, but legally stipulated – the following climate and clean energy targets: a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030; an 85% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050; and 70% renewable electricity by 2030; and 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040.

Cap and Trade Rules

Under the law, the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) had until the start of 2024 to issue regulations that would “ensure” New York met its binding greenhouse gas emissions targets. A year and a half later, no such regulations had been issued.

Behind the scenes, the DEC and NYSERDA had apparently completed draft rules at the beginning of this year for cap and invest, the emissions program that is critical to theimplementation of the climate law. But the governor, instead of releasing these rules for public comment, pulled the plug on them.

In response, Citizen Action of New York, PUSH Buffalo, Sierra Club, and WE ACT for Environmental Justice filed suit in March. In his decision Judge Julian Schreibman gave the DEC until February 6 to issue the cap and trade regulations. “While DEC notes that it has taken other, commendable regulatory steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” the judge said, “it candidly concedes that the impact of those regulations would fall far short” of the targets set out in the climate law.

Echoing Governor Hochul’s concerns about cap and trade, the DEC argued in court that issuing the regulations was “infeasible” because it “would require imposing extraordinary and damaging costs upon New Yorkers.”Judge Schreibman, to his credit, dismissed that argument. “It is undoubtedly true that the task placed before the DEC is very complicated indeed,” he observed. “But as a legal argument, this is unavailing.”

Two Paths

The judge said there were two paths ahead: the DEC can release regulations to meet the requirements of the law or the legislature can change the law. Of course, the DEC could also appeal the decision, which would lead the case to drag on for months longer, if not more. The DEC would only say that it was reviewing the decision.

Governor Hochul took a less ambiguous position on the decision, indicating that she was considering the possibility of pushing the state legislature to change the CLCPA.

NY Renews, a statewide climate justice coalition, spoke out in strong opposition to this possibility. In its words, “changing the climate law would be a massive step in the wrong direction, allowing polluters across New York to proceed with business as usual, unfettered and unchecked, and condemning us to an ever-worsening climate crisis.”

As if on cue, Hurricane Melissa roared through the Caribbean, leaving a trail of death and massive destruction in its wake. One of the strongest hurricanes on record, Melissa slammed into Jamaica on October 28 with winds of 185 mph. Closer to home, New York City suffered extensive flooding and at least two deaths on October 30 as rainfall broke 100-year records and submerged streets and subways.

The message couldn’t be clearer: the climate crisis isn’t going away and, in fact, will only get worse. Those of us who recognize this likelihood must hold the governor and state legislators accountable during the next session beginning in January, making sure that any efforts to weaken the climate law are defeated.

The New York Draft Energy Plan Falls Woefully Short

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It wasn’t that long ago New York achieved national prominence for its ambitious renewable energy push. But with NYSERDA’s recent release of its draft energy plan state officials are openly acknowledging that New York will fail to meet the clean energy targets mandated by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2018. The state climate law stipulates that 70% of the energy produced in New York should be zero-emissions by 2030.

The plan recognizes the need for more renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions reductions. To say the least, however, it sends a disappointing message by calling for continued reliance on fossil fuels as well as new investments in new natural gas pipelines and the repowering of fossil fuel plants.

The plan also concludes that New York’s goal of reaching a 40% reduction in emissions from 1990s levels by 2030 is probably not achievable. So far the state has only reduced its emissions by 10% with just five years to go.

Not surprisingly, the plan blames some of the state’s failures on the increasingly aggressive opposition to renewable energy by the Trump administration, but as environmental activists point out, the state was already behind before these attacks.

To its credit, the plan calls for accelerating the deployment of energy efficiency measures such as home weatherization and power-saving appliances. According to its projections, up to 25% of homes by 2040 will have heat pumps and over half the cars could be zero-emission vehicles.

The plan also seeks to increase solar power and battery storage, and notes that New York could increase its renewable electricity generation by 80% over the next 10 years. Of course, the Trump administration’s irrational effort to pull the plug on offshore wind casts a shadow over this possibility.

With the right kind of strong, visionary leadership, New York could accelerate its adoption of solar energy, battery storage, and geothermal energy while retiring its fossil fuel system and electrifying transportation and buildings. The key problem clearly lies with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s reluctance to meet the moment and provide such leadership.

Thousands of comments have been submitted by the public focusing on the flaws in the draft energy plan and its lack of commitment to the CLCPA. Later this year, the state will publish a final plan. Let’s hope it responds to these comments, keeping New York on the path to a renewable energy future.

Time to Move Forward on Cap-and-Invest

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Last year saw a string of costly extreme weather events fueled by climate change across New York, including record rainfall, flash flooding, and tornadoes in upstate communities. This past August Tropical Storm Debby’s remnants caused flash flooding and widespread damage in the Finger Lakes.

These events altogether caused over $1 billion in damages in New York in 2024. In the face of escalating costs, by implementing a good cap-and-invest system, the state has an important opportunity to bring in much-needed funds to pay for climate damage going forward, while also reducing emissions from major polluters.

New York Air Guard Airmen help clear debris in Rome, NY following tornado in July 2024. The state National Guard activated 60 soldiers and airmen to help clear debris in the city. Courtesy photo by Major Ryan Marquette.

A Strong Cap-and Invest Program Needed

A strong cap-and-invest program will impose limits on the amount of emissions allowed by polluters and charge them to do so. With those funds, New York can more seriously invest in upgrades to homes to make them more energy efficient and run on clean, renewable energy while also boosting our local economy.

These measures will be especially important as residents absorb the costly increases in energy charged by NYSEG and other state utilities.

The Time for Delay is Over

Cap-and-invest is critical to meeting the targets of the state’s Climate Law. It also ensures New York can provide the level of investment necessary to make energy affordable while also boosting our economy.

Done the right way, Gov. Kathy Hochul, the DEC, and NYSERDA can lead New York into a new year that makes corporate polluters pay. At the same time, cap-and-invest could unlock billions of dollars for investments that drive sustainable economic development, increase energy efficiency, improve public health, and direct funds into neighborhoods to support community-led clean energy transitions.

Unfortunately, while draft regulations were originally due to be issued by now, with revenue beginning to flow by later in the year, Gov. Hochul recently announced that draft regulations won’t be issued until the end of 2025, and even then it appears these will only be partial.

Gov. Hochul’s delay in rolling out the program’s regulations ignores the urgency of the moment: the climate emergency has arrived and we must deal with it immediately. By continuing to stall, the governor increases the burden on disadvantaged communities, worsens harmful emissions, and allows polluters to go unchecked.

The governor first promised the cap-and-invest program over two years ago as the foundation of New York’s climate strategy. Now it appears that instead of promised regulations, we will see at least another year of delays. This move is part and parcel of a growing legacy of inaction and broken commitments on the most urgent crisis of our time.

We need leaders in Albany who are willing to take bold, decisive action to cut air pollution and lower greenhouse gas emissions. It is time to push for faster action from Gov. Hochul. Especially with a new administration in Washington actively hostile to climate policy, and with the state’s utility rates skyrocketing, it is critical that the cap-and-invest program be implemented as soon as possible.

In doing so, we can protect the residents of Ithaca and Tompkins County, as well as future generations, from the most harmful effects of the climate crisis.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

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With the Trump administration taking office on January 20, it’s become clear that efforts to stave off runaway climate change will have to focus on state and local policy.

Trump has promised to halt federal support for clean energy technology and electric vehicles, and he has pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, reverse a key regulation aimed at reducing emissions from power plants, and roll back other rules aimed at curbing climate change and air and water pollution.

Offshore wind is a crucial component of New York’s attempt to achieve 70 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030. Photo by David Dixon/Walney Offshore Windfarm licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Clean Energy’s Rapid Growth Continues

One bright light, though, is the fact that Trump can slow down progress, but he can’t stop the transformation of the domestic and global economies sparked by the clean energy revolution.

More than 40 percent of all global power in 2023 came from renewable sources, and investments in renewable energy are accelerating because prices have dropped dramatically. In fact, more than 80 percent of new electricity capacity around the world comes from carbon-free sources.

NY’s Leadership Role

Nonetheless, action at the state and local levels will be imperative going forward. With Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signing of the Climate Change Superfund Act, New York has taken on a leadership role that will give the state an opportunity to defy the president-elect’s attempt to reverse climate action. This new law, as explained above, will require the biggest oil and gas companies to contribute to a fund that will be used for infrastructure projects meant to protect New York residents from increasingly dangerous climate disasters like storms and sea level rise.

Another major step in the state’s climate fight took place when Hochul, at the same time, signed into law a prohibition on using carbon dioxide for fracking, closing a loophole in New York’s existing hydraulic fracturing ban (also reported above). This legislation, introduced by Assemblymember Anna Kelles in March, signals a determination to keep the fracking industry out of the state.

These two steps forward should be applauded, while at the same time recognizing the importance of continuing the push on climate action and clean energy in Albany when the state legislature opens its new session on January 8. Efforts to ensure that New York obtains 70 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030, as called for by the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) are especially critical.

Expanding offshore wind, implementing congestion pricing in New York City, eliminating subsidies for new gas hookups as well as the Public Service Commission’s obligation to provide gas service, reducing state tax breaks provided to the fossil fuel industry, putting in place a true cap-and-invest program with guardrails to keep it from devolving into cap-and-trade, increasing the kinds of containers covered by the state’s bottle law, and addressing the issue of plastic packaging are just some of the ways New York can continue to strengthen its leadership role on the climate and clean energy fronts.

At the local level, we’ve seen a disappointing step backward with the continued attempt by Cornell University to install synthetic turf fields on campus. Given the recent finding that 2024 is set to become the hottest year on record, the massive rollout of plastic undertaken by Cornell at its athletic facilities is a bad look, to say the least.

Equally dismaying is the apparently superficial investigation by the city planning board as part of the approval process. The board’s negative declaration of environmental significance, precluding the need for the kind of thorough environmental impact statement (EIS) called for by Zero Waste Ithaca, is hard to fathom in light of existing scientific research outlining the harmful public health and environmental effects of synthetic turf. We can only hope that the lawsuit launched by this activist organization will result in greater transparency regarding the risks involved.

Hurricane Beryl, the Supreme Court & Our Troubled Political Landscape

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Hurricane Beryl has now become the earliest Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record as it marches across the Caribbean, wreaking havoc to the Windward Islands. Beryl’s maximum sustained winds have reached close to 160 mph, with higher gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center.

There is strong agreement among scientists that climate breakdown has increased the occurrence of the most intense and destructive tropical storms. Warming oceans, thanks to human-caused climate change, provide more energy to fuel these storms.

Political Will Needed

Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, assailed the lack of political will in the U.S. and Europe to tackle the climate breakdown as Beryl hammered his nation.

“For the major emitters of greenhouse gases, those who contribute most to global warming,” he said, “you are getting a lot of talking, but you are not seeing a lot of action—as in making money available to small-island developing states and other vulnerable countries.

“I am hopeful that what is happening—and we are quite early in the hurricane season—will alert them to our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses and encourage them to honour the commitments they have made on a range of issues, from the Paris accord to the current time.”

The Supreme Court Weighs In

Right on cue, at a time when strong climate action is clearly called for, the U.S. Supreme Court last Friday sharply reined in the power of federal agencies, overturning a forty-year legal precedent known as the Chevron doctrine, which led courts to defer to the expertise of these agencies. As a result, hundreds of environmental and climate regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency, among others in the executive branch, will be open to legal challenges.

“Rules on water quality, smokestack and tailpipe emissions, biodiversity and the effects of climate change will now be relitigated and reinterpreted by the courts,” noted Richard Martin at GreenBiz.

Closer to home, as this year’s legislative session came to a close last month, Gov. Hochul made the controversial decision to pause congestion pricing in New York City after months of preparation to put it in place. In the ensuing chaos, other bills such as the NY HEAT Act and the Packaging Reduction Act failed to get a proper hearing in the General Assembly.

It was a disheartening display of the fossil fuel industry’s ability to bend state political leaders to its will, in part due to the flood of dollars it’s been handing out this election year.

The one bright light in Albany was the last-minute passage of the Climate Change Superfund Act. As reported above, the bill would charge Big Oil companies a total of $3 billion a year for 25 years to pay for costs associated with the destruction caused by climate change.

The legislation now awaits the governor’s signature. If enacted, New York will join Vermont as the second U.S. state with a law requiring fossil-fuel companies to pick up at least a portion of the tab for the huge damage they’ve knowingly inflicted.

In the face of so much demoralizing news, climate justice and environmental groups across the state will push hard this summer to make sure the governor signs this historic bill. If she does, it will mark a significant step towards holding climate polluters accountable. But don’t count on it; only intense, sustained grassroots pressure can make it happen. So, for the sake of future generations, don’t sit on the sidelines. It’s time to turn up the heat.

NYS Drops the Ball on Climate Legislation

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In a breathtaking display of political malpractice, the NYS General Assembly just adjourned the 2023-2024 legislative session in Albany without taking a vote on several crucial pieces of climate legislation.

The final days of the session turned into a brawl to rescue congestion pricing after Gov. Kathy Hochul paused the program just weeks before it was set to begin. As a result, key bills were left by the wayside.

Governor Kathy Hochul. Photo credit: Darren McGee, Office of Governor.

They included the NY HEAT Act, which would stop utilities from automatically charging ratepayers for new gas lines, a measure to reduce plastic packaging, and an expanded bottle deposit law. Both the NY HEAT Act and the Packaging Reduction Act had already passed in the Senate by wide margins, and they had the backing of a majority of co-sponsors in the Assembly, but they never came to a vote.

“This is taking us backwards where we need to be to meet our climate law mandates and to protect people and save them money,” said Liz Moran, a state policy advocate at Earthjustice.

Moran pointed out that NYS lawmakers approved the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in 2019, with a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050. But since then, she said, Democratic leaders in Albany have been unwilling to take the steps needed to actually achieve that goal.

“We will not forget this failure as we struggle with utility shutoffs, high temperatures, and bad air this summer,” said AGREE executive director Jessica Azulay, joining the call for a special session to take up the NY HEAT Act.

The governor’s decision to pause congestion pricing, combined with the failure of the other bills to get a proper hearing in the Assembly, is disconcerting, to say the least. These actions displayed the power of the fossil fuel industry to get its way in Albany, thanks to the flood of dollars it’s handing out in what is an election year.

There was one place where Big Oil failed to get its way, though. In the final hours of the Assembly session—at 3:22 am, to be exact—the Climate Change Superfund Act secured passage.

The bill would charge fossil-fuel companies a total of $3 billion a year for 25 years to pay for costs associated with the destruction caused by climate change.

The Climate Change Superfund Act now lands on Gov. Hochul’s desk, awaiting her signature. If enacted, New York will join Vermont as the second U.S. state with a law requiring fossil-fuel companies to pick up at least a portion of the tab for the huge damage they’ve knowingly inflicted.

There will be tremendous pressure brought to bear, as there should be, by climate justice and environmental groups across the state to make sure the governor signs this historic bill. If she does, it will mark a significant step towards holding climate polluters accountable.

A Failure of Leadership at the Capitol

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When the state’s final budget was released earlier this month, not a single major climate bill was included. No Climate Change Superfund Act, no NY HEAT Act, no Stop Climate Polluter Handouts Act.

It was a shocking development in light of the state’s supposed commitment to achieving an 85% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That’s what New York State’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) requires, but you’d never know it flipping though the pages of this year’s budget book.

The New York State Capitol in Albany. Photo by Craig Fildes licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED.

The operative word in the title of the CLCPA is “leadership.” It was hard to discern any of that, however, when it came to Gov. Hochul and the legislature, especially the General Assembly. Instead, anxiety about the upcoming elections prevailed and Democrats took the safe way out. It was a sad day in Albany and there was little to celebrate when Earth Day occurred a few days later.

The Fossil Fuel Industry Betrayal

It was bad enough when we found out this past January that the fossil fuel industry had more than enough evidence as early as 1954 to understand the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate. But then word came today, with the release of internal documents, that Big Oil lobbied against climate policies that they claimed to support. The betrayal was complete.

“For decades, the fossil-fuel industry has known about the economic and climate harms of its products,” declared Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) “but [it] has deceived the American public to keep collecting more than $600bn each year in subsidies while raking in record-breaking profits.”

Where Do We Go From Here?

In the context of these larger national events, the fact that oil and gas companies were a major factor in pressuring state legislators to forego climate legislation in this year’s budget is especially galling. All three major bills directly confront the oil and gas firms. The NY HEAT Act seeks to eliminate subsidies for new gas hookups, eliminate the “obligation to serve” gas to neighborhoods, and ensure that no low-income household would pay more than 6% of its income for energy.

The Climate Change Superfund Act holds major oil companies accountable for the harm they inflicted on New York between 2000 and 2018. It would require these companies to bear a share of the costs of infrastructure investments required to adapt to the impacts of climate change in the state. The program would assess the major fossil fuel emitters $3 billion annually over the span of 25 years to offset the climate damages incurred by the state.

The Stop Climate Polluter Handouts Act aims at paring back the $1.6 billion taxpayers hand out each year to the oil and gas companies in tax subsidies and other breaks. It defies logic that the state continues to provide huge subsidies to an industry that is causing so much destruction. This bill would end the most egregious state subsidies, amounting to $265 million annually.

The fight to secure the passage of these three bills is far from over. Even though the budget has been set, the legislature still has until June 1 to gain their approval. This is clearly the tougher road but climate movement activists across the state, including TCCPI, are gearing up to push even harder over the next four weeks for this legislation to become law. It’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work!

 

No Watering Down the NYS Climate Law

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We know from the work of Cornell University Professor Robert Howarth and other scientists that two properties of methane make it a critical greenhouse gas: on the one hand, it has roughly 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, and on the other, it begins to dissipate in the atmosphere after a decade, as opposed to many centuries for carbon dioxide. Together these characteristics mean that rapidly cutting methane can have a major impact in the near future on heading off runaway climate change.

For this reason Howarth, a member of the NY Climate Action Council (CAC), sought to secure a new approach to methane emissions as part of the 2019 Climate Protection and Community Leadership Act (CLCPA), measuring them over a 20-year time frame rather than the 100-year time frame previously used in the state. Doing so, in his words, provided NY policymakers with a tool that “more heavily weighs the role of methane as an agent of warming over the next few decades.”

U.S. Methane Emissions by Sector, 2020. Photo credit: Climate Central.


Dropping a Bomb

Most officials in Albany and the climate and environmental justice movements assumed this change was a settled matter following the release of the CAC’s final scoping plan last December.

But in early April Gov. Kathy Hochul indicated her support for bills sponsored by Democratic chairs of the State Senate and General Assembly energy committees to abandon the new method of methane accounting embedded in the climate law and the CAC report, reverting to the 100-year time frame.

Highlighting the Hochul administration’s support for this initiative, the co-chairs of the CAC published an opinion article arguing that the change was necessary to protect “the competitiveness of our businesses” and retain jobs. “As it stands today, the climate act’s emissions accounting method is certain to be a major driver of future costs for New York families,” wrote Basil Seggos, commissioner of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, and Doreen Harris, president and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Besides the proposed alteration in measuring methane emissions, the bills introduced by Sen. Kevin Parker (D-Brooklyn) and Didi Barrett (D-Hudson) would exclude emissions generated by the combustion of biomass and biofuels from statewide totals of GHG emissions and include anaerobic digestion and forest biopower in the state’s definition of “renewable energy systems,” contrary to the CLCPA and CAC.

A Fierce Reaction

Coming in the midst of budget negotiations, these moves set off a firestorm. Opponents in the climate and environmental movements rallied immediately, asserting that the bills would deliver a “a body blow” to the nation-leading climate law and constituted “an accounting trick” designed to placate the oil and gas lobby. “Governor Hochul would side with the fossil fuel industry to torpedo New York’s landmark climate law, along with her own budget proposals to address the climate crisis, should she move forward with a proposal to weaken the state’s accounting for methane emissions,” said Liz Moran, the NY policy advocate for Earthjustice. TCCPI joined dozens of other groups in sending a memo of opposition within 24 hours of the breaking news.

The ability of so many organizations to mount a powerful campaign of phone calls, emails, and social media messages on such short notice was both impressive and inspiring. The depth and breadth of the backlash clearly came as a surprise to the Hochul administration. Two days after the Seggos and Harris op-ed, Gov. Hochul backed off the drive to weaken the climate law as part of the budget negotiations. It was not a coincidence that this took place the same day that Howarth and two dozen other scientists from Cornell University, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sent a letter of protest.

In the end, at least for now, science won and the fossil fuel industry lost. There is a distinct possibility, however, that the attempt to water down the climate law will raise its head again following the approval of the state budget. As it is, the proposal to redefine renewable energy to include biofuels is still on the table. Both this and the effort to change the methane accounting rule must be kept from becoming law.

It is one thing to stop these kinds of ill-considered and ill-timed moves and another to achieve victory for the crucial climate justice and clean energy legislation still under consideration in Albany. The so-called “conceptual agreement” on the budget reached  on April 27th includes a ban on the use of fossil fuels in new construction, and the proposal for a cap-and-invest program is still in the mix. The details of both, however, as well as the fate of other important climate and energy bills, remain uncertain.

Time grows short to implement the measures necessary to ensure the success of the CLCPA and bolster the CAC’s plan to avoid even worse climate chaos. The lesson to be learned from the latest developments is clear: the only real possibility of success in the face of the relentless pressure brought to bear by the oil and gas lobby is unstinting collective action by well-organized citizens fighting for their communities. We must remain vigilant and make sure our elected representatives hear us.