Hochul's climate law delay confounds environmentalists, Dems |
Hochul’s climate law delay confounds environmentalists, Dems
Governor Kathy Hochul has urged New York state lawmakers to delay emission mandates in the state's landmark climate law, citing warnings about severe spikes in utility and gas bills. However, environmentalists and Democratic legislative leaders have pushed back, arguing that the governor is using the global volatility of fossil fuels as an excuse to gut environmental protections behind the scenes. Business coalitions and trade groups have also argued that climate mandates are crushing the state economy, while advocates warn that waiting to jettison fossil fuels hurts Black and brown communities.
Governor Kathy Hochul has urged New York state lawmakers to delay emission mandates in the state's landmark climate law, citing warnings about severe spikes in utility and gas bills. However, environmentalists and Democratic legislative leaders have pushed back, arguing that the governor is using the global volatility of fossil fuels as an excuse to gut environmental protections behind the scenes. Business coalitions and trade groups have also argued that climate mandates are crushing the state economy, while advocates warn that waiting to jettison fossil fuels hurts Black and brown communities.
ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — Governor Kathy Hochul visited Tonawanda on Monday morning to urge state lawmakers to delay emission mandates in New York’s landmark climate law, repeating warnings about severe spikes in utility and gas bills. Environmentalists and Democratic legislative leaders have pushed back, arguing that the governor is using the global volatility of fossil fuels as an excuse to gut environmental protections behind the scenes.
From a Sunoco gas station, Hochul again cited a New York State Energy Research and Development Authority analysis. It projected that the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act will add $4,000 a year to heating bills upstate while raising gasoline prices by about $2.30 per gallon.
Passed in 2019, the CLCPA requires statewide emissions reductions, while the cap-and-invest regulatory program would cap pollution levels and charge corporate polluters to pay for clean energy projects. Asked what changes she would like to see made to the climate law, Hochul said, “We’ll be announcing them this week.”
The push for climate delays follows a state supreme court ruling last year that the Hochul administration violated the CLCPA by failing to release required emissions regulations. Attorneys and climate groups suing the state—including Earthjustice, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and WE ACT for Environmental Justice—are holding a briefing Tuesday morning to address what they call Hochul’s false statements about their lawsuit’s court-ordered deadlines.
Business coalitions and trade groups argue that those official NYSERDA cost estimates prove that climate mandates are crushing the state economy. The Trucking Association of New York warned the law could increase diesel costs by over 60% for delivery trucks, adding between $3,800 and $6,200 per vehicle each year. The New York State Restaurant Association said that climate mandates will kill any businesses that are already struggling with cost of doing business.
Over a million New York households were at least 60 days behind on their utility bills last year, with New Yorkers collectively owing utilities more than $1.8 billion as of December, according to AARP New York. Utilities shut off service to over 400,000 households for non-payment, with Consolidated Edison downstate accounting for the largest share. They issued over 1.4 million final termination notices and disconnected 190,410 customers.
According to Hochul, the legislature should approve changes to the law to reflect pandemic-era inflation and higher energy costs driven in part by a war in the Middle East. Environmentalists maintain that unpredictable the global natural gas market and decrepit fossil fuel infrastructure causes higher bills, not a climate law that hasn’t even been implemented. Hochul said on Monday that she broadly agrees, but can’t control American foreign policy.
Advocates and the greener flank of Democrats in the State Senate and Assembly have argued that the governor manufactured a crisis based on a flawed, cherry-picked analysis. Organizations like Earthjustice and the NYPIRG said the NYSERDA memo ignores consumer protections built into the CLCPA while assuming the most expensive possible projections as definite.
“The governor wants New Yorkers to believe that even though we’ve hardly done anything to implement CLCPA, it is somehow to blame for rising energy costs,” said Democratic State Senator Liz Krueger, who chairs the Finance Committee.
Indeed, leaders in the Senate and Assembly haven’t yet included any version climate law rollbacks in their budget plans. State Senator Pete Harckham, chair of the Environmental Conservation Committee, said that changing the law as part of secret budget negotiations damages the public trust and disenfranchises New Yorkers, since the original legislation was developed and passed in a transparent process.
Instead, the Assembly budget proposal includes $200 million for the New York Power Authority to build publicly owned renewable energy projects to lower consumer bills over the long term, alongside a two-year freeze on any utility rate hikes. And while Hochul and the NYSERDA memo zoomed in on a hypothetical, worst-case scenario for the cap-and-invest program, Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha pointed out that the administration chose the most expensive potential option out of many in the CLCPA to justify rolling it back.
New York has no cap-and-invest program in place so far, only an emissions reporting rule. And instead of crippling costs, a January report from the Environmental Defense Fund projected that such a program would actually net $6.9 billion in savings over the next ten years, saving the average family earning under $200,000 about $1,060.
The NY Renews coalition added that reinvesting cap-and-invest funds into construction and transportation could generate over $1.8 billion in annual spending. That could create almost 10,000 direct and indirect jobs every year, they said, who would take on projects like heat pump installations or electric vehicle charging stations.
And an analysis from Synapse Energy Economics found that other measures could achieve the savings Hochul wants without changing the climate law. For example, they theorized that requiring data centers to supply their own clean energy and expanding customer-owned power would save average upstate ratepayers $341 annually by 2030. The analysis also recommended lowering guaranteed profit margins for utilities and avoiding or canceling new fossil fuel infrastructure projects like the proposed Northeast Supply Enhancement pipeline.
Hochul also promoted her Ratepayer Protection Plan, which is supposed to eliminate hidden utility fees and force the largest energy consumers, like data centers, to supply their own power. But critics from her own party have expressed frustration with the governor for apparently catering to corporate moneyed interests by rolling back climate goals.
Climate advocates also warn that waiting to jettison fossil fuels hurts Black and brown communities. Raya Salter, a member of the state Climate Action Council, pointed out decades of redlining that concentrated pollution in minority neighborhoods, causing higher asthma rates and heavier energy burdens. She argued the climate law would address that environmental racism by mandating that 40% of clean energy investments benefit these specific disadvantaged communities.
For their part, Republican lawmakers have seized on the cost projections to demand a complete repeal of the climate law. Assembly Republicans proposed the Lights On With Energy Relief Plan, for example, a $2 billion energy rebate and immediate reinvestment in natural gas plants to stabilize the power grid. And according to State Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt, Democrats purposefully back policy that makes life less affordable for New Yorkers.
Meanwhile, the Green Party of New York accused the governor of artificially inflating climate costs to justify expanding nuclear power. Party co-chairs Gloria Mattera, Mark Dunlea, and Peter LaVenia said Hochul supports billions in subsidies to keep old reactors running, arguing that the state should instead invest in cheaper renewable energy and conservation efforts. They also argued that the NYSERDA estimates ignored $50 billion annual health care costs caused by air pollution.
Hochul’s long-term strategy does rely heavily on expanded nuclear energy to stabilize the power grid. She has proposed that the state should facilitated adding 4 gigawatts of new nuclear energy.
Take a look at “Making Energy More Affordable in New York” from Synapse Energy Economics below:
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