New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state needs more time to meet its mandate of slashing greenhouse gas emissions, making clear for the first time Wednesday that she intends to ask lawmakers to push back an aggressive timeline set in state law seven years ago.
The governor made her most substantive comments to date about her concerns with New York’s landmark 2019 climate law, which requires the state to cut emissions 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050 while significantly boosting renewable energy.
Hochul has made clear in recent weeks that she wants changes to the law. But she hadn’t gotten into any specifics until Wednesday, when she nodded when asked at a Politico event in Albany whether she’s seeking an extension for meeting the goals.
“Do you want to give ourselves some breathing room? Or do you want to impose those costs on New Yorkers?” Hochul said. “Because that's not hypothetical. That's me following the law.”
She continued: “I need time. I need more time.”
Hochul, a moderate Democrat, has centered her re-election campaign on issues of affordability. She has made the case in recent weeks that meeting the emission-cutting goals would be costly and unrealistic, angering environmentalists who have hailed the measure as a key way to deal with the worsening effects of climate change.
The governor’s effort to change the climate law’s timeline has her at odds with prominent Democrats at the Capitol who stand by the measure. They said the law is necessary to have any hope of staving off the negative effects of the climate crisis, and that the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term costs.
That includes Senate Finance Chair Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat who helped organize a sign-on letter to the governor from 29 Senate Democrats who oppose changing the law.
“The scientists, the environmental organizations, the municipal, local governments, nobody wants us to reopen [the climate law],“ Krueger said. “So I hope very much that's not part of any [budget] negotiations.”
But Hochul has taken the position that the cost of reshaping the state’s energy consumption to meet the goals as they’re currently written is untenable.
Her administration released a memo earlier this month making the case that meeting the 2030 mark would push utility costs skyward and cause gasoline prices to spike by more than $2 a gallon.
The governor is using the memo to make her case even as environmentalists fault it for failing to quantify the law’s benefits.
That position has put her more in line with legislative Republicans, who continue to fault Hochul for supporting the law in the first place. When it was passed in 2019, Hochul was lieutenant governor.
“New Yorkers simply cannot afford the Democrats’ green energy mandates,” said Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, a Republican from the Buffalo area. “They continue to champion policies that they unequivocally know are driving up costs and making life less affordable.”
Hochul said she continues to stand by the intent of the climate law and she defended the memo outlining its costs.
The memo is based on the state implementing a “cap and invest” program to meet the climate goals, which would require climate polluters to purchase “allowances” from the state if they exceed a limit on greenhouse gas emissions. But the memo assumes there would be no limit on the cost of those allowances, which critics say helped drive up the overall cost estimate.
Hochul pushed back against the idea that the memo used cherry-picked data.
“ I would've loved to have never had a memo that said the cost would go up that high,” she said at the Politico event. “You think I want that? I mean, New Yorkers are already scared enough of their bills.”
Hochul said she’s urging lawmakers to act as part of the state budget, which is due by the end of the month. She pointed to a court order requiring her administration to finalize a regulatory plan to meet the climate goals, which she said makes the issue all the more urgent.
The state is appealing that order, with arguments set for April.
A nonprofit known as Earthjustice, which takes on environmentally focused legal cases, brought the case against Hochul’s administration in an attempt to force it to put a plan in place for complying with the climate law.
Rachel Spector, an Earthjustice attorney, took issue with Hochul using the pending court arguments as a deadline, of sorts, for the Legislature to act. She said her clients are open to negotiating a settlement with the state.
“Investing in clean energy and helping people switch off those really expensive, delivered fuels … and helping them switch to clean technology, that's going to help people,” Spector said. “And that's what complying with the climate law will also do.”
As of Tuesday, Hochul had not given any formal proposals to the Legislature, according to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat.
“ New York cares about climate,” Heastie said. “We care about having a world for our children. But at this point, no, the governor has not given us a specific proposal.”
