By Anshul Gupta
Every New Yorker without an electric vehicle is feeling the painful impacts of our dependence on fossil fuels at the gas pump, and everyone without solar panels is experiencing the same in utility bills, while the oil and gas industry is laughing all the way to the bank.
Yet, amid another energy shock, Governor Hochul is trying to gut New York’s climate law, which will deepen and prolong the fossil-fuel industry’s grip on our pocketbooks. This is harmful policy and unwise politics. There are telltale signs of both, which the governor and the legislature shouldn’t ignore.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, gasoline and diesel prices are likely to stay high for a while even after the Iran war ends. The full impact of the damage to the Middle East’s natural gas infrastructure will unfold in New York over time as U.S. suppliers boost profitable exports. The economies showing the most resilience to the current energy affordability crisis are the ones that invested heavily in clean energy. Some of New York’s past astute decisions are also bearing fruit.
During last summer’s heat wave, rooftop and other small-scale solar installations reduced statewide peak electricity demand, saving ratepayers over $90 million on just the hottest day. As a result of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative — a successful multistate cap-and-invest program covering power plants in the northeast and mid-Atlantic — New York ratepayers are expected to save nearly $12 billion, representing a six-to-one return on approximately $2 billion invested to date. The same program also helps lower barriers for transitioning to clean, stable energy for all New Yorkers by providing vital funding for programs like the rebates for electric vehicle purchases.
New York’s climate law required regulations for reducing fossil fuels’ climate pollution to be rolled out in 2024, which the Hochul Administration did not do and is facing an imminent court loss for violating the law. Instead of settling the lawsuit or complying with the law, the Governor has introduced sweeping proposals to dismantle the law in the secretive budget process.
The governor cites Trump Administration’s hostility and an inflationary, tariffs-ridden economic landscape as reasons for her inability to advance clean-energy solutions at the pace required by the law. This narrative could find some sympathy, but only if she was trying.
Instead, the governor has proposed to not even begin any pollution-capping regulations and related investments until 2031—a full two years past Trump’s term. Additionally, she’s proposing to make pollution reduction targets non-binding and weaken them so much that the state won’t see any meaningful action for a decade or more. Inflation and tariffs apply to fossil fuels and their equipment too.
The governor also wants to water down how the state measures climate-pollution, particularly from methane that makes up about 95% of “natural” gas. This is a revival of a change she sought in 2023 at the behest of the gas and biofuels industries—well before Trump’s reelection.
A key reason why New York has made virtually no progress towards its pollution-reduction targets while energy prices have continued to skyrocket amid a fossil-fuel status quo is that the state never started in earnest. The few renewable energy success stories that the governor cites as examples of her sincerity fall apart as easily as her stated reasons for gutting the climate law.
Renewable energy is advancing rapidly everywhere, not just in New York, primarily because of its economic advantage over fossil fuels. Governor Hochul often publicly pats herself on the back for rescuing offshore wind from attacks by President Trump, who had issued stop-work orders on five major projects from the coasts of Massachusetts to Virginia. But every state got its wind farms back on track; only New York approved a massive Trump-backed fracked gas pipeline in return.
As the governor works to undermine the state’s landmark climate law, thousands are taking to the streets, emailing, calling, and using all the tools at their disposal to tell the legislature in no uncertain terms to defend it. To date, New Yorkers have sent and placed more than 33 thousand emails and calls to elected officials, thousands have taken to the streets in rallies, more than 100 local elected officials have voiced their opposition in a letter to legislative leaders, 100 faith leaders sent an Earth Day letter to the governor characterizing upholding of the climate law an economic, public health, justice, and moral issue, and dozens of international scientists sent a letter in support of the methane accounting methodology enshrined in New York’s climate law.
The results of recent polling in competitive districts found that 55% of all respondents and 74% of Democrats surveyed expressed that in upcoming elections, they’d be more likely to vote for a state legislator who voted to continue implementing New York’s clean energy laws. Since announcing the climate rollbacks, the governor’s own previously steady lead over her opponent has dropped by seven points with hardly any effort on part of her opponent. Independent voters have flipped and her lead in New York City has collapsed from 46 to 29 points.
The governor’s case for a wholesale rewrite of New York’s climate law due to temporary bumps in the road is riddled with inconsistencies. It helps fossil-fuel interests that have spent more than $16 million lobbying her but does not address New Yorkers’ energy costs and will make them worse. It is politically unpopular and is unsupported by facts.
The legislature must not join the governor in a political suicide-pact by sneaking major climate-law rollbacks in the state budget to boost the oil and gas industry at a time when this industry is inflicting increasing pain on New Yorkers. It must hold the line against any permanent changes to the law and insist on rolling out the regulations for reducing climate pollution without delays.
Anshul Gupta is the Policy & Research Director at New Yorkers for Clean Power and a member of the Westchester chapter of the Climate Reality Project.
