New York’s Budget Must Not Sacrifice Climate Goals

We’re in the 11th hour of budget “negotiations” on Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed changes to New York’s landmark nation-leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA; law summary here). There has been a great deal of misinformation circulating regarding the decisions that elected officials are facing and what would be appropriate, limited, surgical changes to the CLCPA that would support long-term energy affordability, cleaner air, and healthier people in New York.  

As lawmakers grapple with these important questions, the following bullets outline key considerations that should drive any outcomes in these high-stakes negotiations. In short, any budget deal should (1) direct the state to promulgate an affordability-centered cap-and-invest program in 2027; and (2) include binding interim greenhouse gas reduction targets. We ask that you publish an editorial in support of a strong CLCPA to protect New Yorkers’ climate, energy affordability, and health. 

• Cap and invest: New York must adopt and implement a well-designed cap-and-invest program in 2027 (which is a full eight years after the CLCPA was enacted) that can be guided by the following key elements:
  • Affordability: As clearly illustrated by years of public stakeholder briefings and presentations, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) can design the cap-and-invest program with cost controls, as detailed in their filings (see here starting at slide 43), like every cap-and-invest program in the United States, including the successful Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which New York helped establish and has participated in since its inception in 2009. And RGGI investments in New York of $2 billion have yielded savings of more than $12 billion.
  • Direct bill relief: By law, 30 percent of all cap-and-invest proceeds will be distributed directly back to consumers.
  • Benefits: The “invest” part of cap and invest will yield tens of thousands of newly created local jobs, billions in economic activity, and significant reductions in pollution-related illness from reducing air pollution from combusting fuels in vehicles and buildings. Annually, there would be hundreds of fewer hospitalizations and heart attacks, more than a thousand fewer premature deaths and ER visits for asthma, and tens of thousands of fewer lost work days, which will yield annual health savings in the billions with increased greater-than-proportional benefits to disadvantaged communities. 
    These health benefits are all the more critical, given that federal rollbacks of climate and air regulations and programs are expected to result in $3.6 billion in additional annual health harms to New Yorkers by 2040.
• The governor’s proposal (City & State article on negotiations):
  • Would make New York the first state to legally weaken climate targets.
  • Would only delay regulations and weaken emissions reductions. It would also change how emissions are counted, allowing imported biogenic fuels to count as zero, even though the emissions reductions happen outside of the state and the combustion creates the same air pollution in the state.
• Costs to New York from continued dependence on fossil fuels:
  • Since the Iran war began, New Yorkers have spent an additional $400 million in costs for gasoline.
  • In 2025, wholesale power prices were up to $74.40 per megawatt-hour (mwh) versus $41.81 per mwh in 2024, driven predominantly by natural gas prices increasing by 120 percent (and not because of renewable energy).