POLITICO: ‘Too far too fast’: Lawmakers leave Albany without major environmental progress

June 20th, 2024

Environmentalists blamed Assembly Democrats for failing to tackle major bills to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the article by Marie French here.

ALBANY, New York — Lawmakers returned to their districts this month with few significant environmental wins to campaign on — the latest sign that reducing emissions and achieving climate law mandates remain elusive.

Upon concluding its annual session this month, the Legislature failed to pass any major elements of the state’s plan to slash emissions 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050. Elected officials left the Capitol without acting on sweeping bills to reduce plastic packaging, begin plans to transition buildings off gas and mitigate vehicle traffic.

And their inaction will have political consequences.

A new climate-focused independent expenditure fund plans to spend about $20,000 opposing two Assembly Democrats and backing their progressive challengers as a result.

Assembly Democrats squeaked through a potentially major revenue raiser for infrastructure to respond to the ongoing and future damage from rising seas, historic rainfall events and hotter temperatures.

Yet five years after passage of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a mandate barring fossil fuels in new construction is the only significant emissions reduction measure to have passed.

“What we’re seeing is just basic climate indifference,” said Eunice Ko, the deputy director for the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. “Partly what we’re seeing is an overemphasis, I think, on affordability from the governor and the Legislature.”

“I would argue affordable for who,” Ko added. “You can subsidize suburban people, I guess, but won’t be willing to subsidize caskets in the Bronx when people are dying from extreme heat.”

The state’s climate scoping plan, approved in December 2022 by a council of executive officials and outside experts, gives lawmakers a lengthy to-do list of statutory changes to support emissions reductions.

In the final days of the five-month session, legislators were expecting a bill to reduce packaging and plastic waste to serve as their big win on climate change. Such an “extended producer responsibility” system is endorsed by the climate plan.

But late on Friday, June 7, as that effort faltered in the Assembly, the “environmental thing” became the Climate Superfund measure to raise $75 billion over 25 years, with the money earmarked for climate adaptation projects. Hochul hasn’t committed to signing it and lawsuits are expected. So even if it survives in the courts, funding could be years away.

“Nobody should be counting on paying for things with that money. Maybe it’ll happen, but it’s still speculative on several counts,” said Michael Gerrard, a professor and faculty director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

Environmentalists laid much of the blame for the Legislature’s lackluster progress on climate on the Assembly, whose Democratic members raised concerns about the cost of several climate priorities.

“This is around the third year at this point where the Assembly has been a roadblock to passing policies to ensure we can meet the climate law, which is the same legislation the Assembly once championed,” said Liz Moran, New York policy advocate with Earthjustice, an environmental legal and advocacy group.

Speaker Carl Heastie has raised concerns about the costs of the gas transition proposal known as the NY HEAT Act, which would allow the state’s utility regulator to take entire neighborhoods off the gas system after ensuring available alternatives.

“We want to make sure that if there’s a transition, that it’s affordable,” Heastie said in the final days of the legislative session.

Affordability concerns stalled the plastics and packaging billchampioned by advocacy group Beyond Plastics and others. It nevertheless passed the Democratic-led Senate for the first time.

Worries about impacts on residential customers and businesses were also raised about the NY HEAT Act, which would eliminate subsidies for new hookups and seek to cap utility bills at 6 percent of income.

The more controversial piece stemmed from ending the “obligation to serve” for gas, which opens the door to ending customer service. Bill proponents say that would happen only after lengthy planning to ensure an orderly transition off the gas system, as people switch to heat pumps and other means.

Some progress toward a compromise on the bill was made in the final days of lawmakers’ session, according to a draft bill obtained by POLITICO.

The potential deal would require a gas transition plan to be developed by the Department of Public Service within four years and would end the “obligation to serve” for gas. No customers would see gas stop flowing until 2029.

The draft bill would also nix subsidies for new gas hookups paid by other customers, known as the “100 foot rule.” The commission would be required to consider having utilities provide gas to buildings that can’t otherwise be safely heated, hard-to-electrify buildings, or energy intensive industries, among other carve outs.

Labor provisions including prevailing wage requirements for neighborhood-scale decarbonization projects are included.

High on the list of abandoned environmental priorities was Gov. Kathy Hochul’s “indefinite” delay of congestion pricing, which blew a hole in the MTA’s budget and derailed talks on other issues.

“I thought we were getting close, but in the end it really does sometimes come down to a bandwidth issue,” said Assemblymember Pat Fahy, sponsor of the NY HEAT Act, noting that Hochul’s reversal sucked up hours of internal conference discussions that could have been spent on other matters.

Sen. Liz Krueger, who sponsors the NY HEAT bill in the Senate, said the governor’s leadership on climate has also been lacking.

“It’s not that we’re all not responsible because we all are, but I also think that the governor’s unwillingness to come out for these things, propose anything, not try to kill them has contributed,” Krueger told POLITICO. “She’s continued to message quietly, ‘All of our proposals are too far too fast.’”

Hochul spokesperson Katy Zielinski pointed to a measure aimed at accelerating transmission siting, $500 million for clean water infrastructure (which the governor wanted to slash in half) and $400 million for the Environmental Protection Fund in the state’s $237 billion budget as accomplishments this session.

“Since taking office, Governor Hochul has implemented some of the nation’s strongest actions on climate, including securing a $4.2 billion Environmental Bond Act, advancing zero emission new construction, and making historic investments in large-scale renewable energy and transmission infrastructure,” Zielinski said.

Some smaller items backed by environmental groups also passed: new requirements for EV charging in new construction, an anti-tropical deforestation measure Hochul vetoed last year, an expansion of the food scrap diversion program and an extension of a New York City green roof tax benefit.

The relatively limited action was viewed positively by a fossil fuel and labor-backed group, as well as other business interests.

“We were happy to see that the concerns around affordability were finally heard and helped to prevent bad policies, with the exception of the Climate Act Superfund, from crossing the finish line in the final hours of the legislative calendar,” said Justin Wilcox, with business group Upstate United.

Executive action to implement the climate law is also falling short.

New York is not on track to meet the 70 percent renewable electricity goal by 2030, as new renewables including offshore wind have become more expensive than originally expected and contracts have been canceled.

A distributed solar goal is within sight, but the state is not on track to hit an energy efficiency target for next year. Industry pressure is expected to weaken proposed state regulations on planet-warming refrigerants.

The Hochul administration has several times already delayed the rollout of an economywide cap-and-trade program that, as proposed, still wouldn’t ensure the state meets its 2040 emissions reduction targets.

And hitting those goals looks to be more and more difficult — and potentially costly for businesses and consumers, said the Business Council for New York State, Inc.’s Ken Pokalsky.

“The upfront capital costs of this transition are going to be enormous,” Pokalsky said.

Some environmental advocates said they wanted to see lawmakers pass a gas transition measure if they return for a special session, which could be spurred by the MTA’s funding gap.

A new political arm formed by Spring Street Climate Fund is stepping up actions ahead of the primary in two races: one against Assembly Energy Chair Didi Barrett in the Hudson Valley and the other against Assemblymember Michael Benedetto in the Bronx.

“Until the assembly starts to put its legislative action where its rhetoric is, we will continue to hold members of the Assembly Majority accountable,” said John Raskin, head of the Spring Street Climate Political Fund.