Citing Affordability, NY Gov. Hochul Looks to Punt Climate Rules

New York Public News Network | By Jon Campbell

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to scale back a landmark climate law once hailed as one of the nation’s strongest, arguing it’s necessary to deal with the “economic and political challenges” facing the state.

In an op-ed Friday, Hochul laid out a handful of significant changes she’s urging lawmakers to make to the state’s landmark 2019 climate law, which requires New York to slash its greenhouse-gas emissions 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050 – goals the state is already on track to miss.

That includes punting the regulations for the state’s emissions-cutting program for another four years to the end of 2030, a move that would effectively nullify that year’s mandate. Hochul then would add a new benchmark for 2040 and keep the 2050 mandate while changing the methodology used to calculate emissions, a move that would instantly put the state closer to meeting its goals.

The op-ed, published on the Empire Report, a news-aggregation site, comes after Hochul has hinted for weeks that she wants to roll back the law known as the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which she once enthusiastically supported as a way to combat the negative effects of climate change.

Now, Hochul says she still supports the overall spirit of the law, but claims the state can’t meet the 2030 mandate without imposing major costs on utility customers.

“While I am still committed to working toward our targets, with all the stress our residents are under, New Yorkers expect their elected officials to prioritize affordability,” Hochul wrote in her op-ed. “They are suffering from high costs every single day and I for one will not ignore their cries for relief.”

Environmental advocates accused Hochul of trying to gut the climate law.

They’ve brought a lawsuit seeking to force the governor’s administration to finalize climate regulations it has delayed for more than a year, the same regulations Hochul is now trying to push to 2030. As currently proposed, those regulations would include a “cap-and-invest” program, which would set a cap on emissions and require polluters who exceed the cap to pay for “allowances” that would be used to fund climate-friendly projects.

Environmentalists say the benefits of the climate law more than cancel out any costs. They called on lawmakers to reject Hochul’s proposals.

Elizabeth Moran, New York policy advocate for Earthjustice, the nonprofit leading the lawsuit against the state, said Hochul’s plan would allow her to “ totally renege on the climate law so she can keep doing nothing instead of working together with the Legislature to drive down New Yorkers’ skyrocketing energy bills.”

“She’s trying to use the budget process to make a secret deal,” Moran said. “Let’s be clear: This is a manufactured election-year climate-law crisis that the governor is trying to push onto the Legislature to cover for her own failure of leadership.”

Hochul’s push to scale back the law has been cheered by business groups and labor unions, who say the potential short-term costs are too much to bear. That includes the cost of the cap-and-invest program.

The governor is up for reelection this year and has centered her campaign on affordability. Last month, her administration released a memo claiming the costs of meeting the 2030 mandate with a cap-and-invest program would drive up gas prices by more than $2 a gallon and impose costs of at least $2,300 a year for many New York City households by 2031 — estimates that environmental groups dispute.

“These are reasonable and necessary corrections that will avoid onerous and costly mandates based on impractical emission-reduction targets,” said Heather Mulligan, president and CEO of The Business Council, the state’s largest business organization.

Hochul wants to include the changes in a final state budget agreement, which is due in less than two weeks. Some state lawmakers had grown frustrated with Hochul failing to provide specifics.

Assembly Environmental Conservation Chair Deborah Glick, a Manhattan Democrat, signaled she’s open to negotiating changes to deadlines for the state’s emissions targets.

But Glick said she’s not open to making changes to the accounting methodology, which would measure the global warming impact of emissions on a 100-year scale rather than a 20-year scale — a move that would make it easier for the state to make its goals on account of methane emissions that are more damaging in the short term.

As of January 2025, New York reduced its emissions by about 9% compared to 1990 levels, far off the pace to meet the 40% benchmark by 2030 under the current methodology, according to the New York State Energy Research Development Authority. Adopting the 100-year benchmark would instantly put the state on a track toward meeting the goal.

“You can change the deadlines, but you can’t change the accounting and you can’t change the science,” Glick said. “Because the accounting methodology is based on the science of which emissions are most damaging to the environment.”

On the Senate side, 29 Democrats sent a letter to Hochul earlier this month vowing to resist any substantive changes to the climate law.

Hochul, meanwhile, has argued New York is an outlier in relying on measuring greenhouse-gas impacts on a 20-year scale. The Paris Agreement, for example, relies on a 100-year measure.

“These proposed changes preserve the intent of the law while realistically recognizing the economic and political challenges we face,” she said.

Scaling the climate law back could help neutralize a Republican line of attack as Hochul seeks her second full term in office. Her GOP opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, has railed against the climate law, as have many Republicans in the Legislature.

But state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, a Republican from the Buffalo area, said Hochul’s plan amounts to “meaningless delays that will do nothing to help lower New Yorkers’ utility costs.”

“The only way to ensure affordable and reliable energy is to repeal the Climate Act and move forward with a new plan that is realistic,” he said in a statement.

The state budget is due by April 1, though Hochul and lawmakers have missed that deadline each year since she took office in 2021.

Image: Gov. Kathy Hochul discusses New York’s participation in the U.S. Climate Alliance’s Governors’ Climate-Ready Workforce Initiative in this Sept. 23, 2024 file photo. (Don Pollard/Office of Gov. Kathy Hochul)