– This story first appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication that examines New York state politics. Sign up for their stories at nysfocus.com/newsletter.
Five years after New York lawmakers passed a landmark bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the state has missed some of the law’s key deadlines — and is about to miss another.
When the law was passed on this day in 2019, it was heralded as one of the most ambitious climate plans in the world. It set big, long-term mandates — with the state committing to net-zero emissions by 2050 — and a bunch of smaller goals along the way. Now the growing backlog on deadlines has left the bill’s supporters dismayed.
“We are all stunned at how terribly the implementation has gone,” said Eddie Bautista, executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. “In just five years, we have gone from visionary leaders to a situation where we are no longer able to implement our own laws. It’s just insane.”
On January 1, New York was required to set rules to achieve the law’s key emissions targets. Without them, the state cannot force polluters to comply. In December, the country released a “preliminary draft” for its main strategy to do this – putting a price on emissions through a program known as “cap and invest” – but it hasn’t even released a draft of the rules. to the program.
By June 1, the state should have a strategy in place to improve air quality in vulnerable communities. The Department of Environmental Conservation, responsible for drawing up the plan, has still not done so. (The agency has collected data to inform the plan, and says it will host listening sessions this summer to solicit community input.)
And by July 1, the state must release an official progress report on its renewable energy mandates, but that will likely be at least a few months too late. The Department of Public Service, which is preparing the report, said a draft is not expected until early July. It must then go through a public comment period of at least 60 days before final publication.
Supporters of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act place much of the blame for the stagnant progress on the governor Kathy Hochulwhich oversees the agencies responsible for implementing the law and has a pulpit to push for legislation necessary to achieve its objectives.
‘One of these [missed deadlines] would be understandable, but what they add up is a very questionable set of leadership decisions,” said Stephan Edel, executive director of New Renews, the coalition that led the CLCPA leadership in 2019.
Hochul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
There will be more deadlines next year.
One represents a rare bright spot in New York’s energy transition: rooftop and community solar. The state has already realized 5.7 gigawatts worth, of the six needed by 2025. If this year is anything like the last few, New York will likely meet the target before the end of the year.
New York must also improve energy efficiency in buildings by 2025, which will reduce on-site energy use by about one-tenth. The state is moving toward that goal, but not fast enough. At the current rate it will miss the point.
Jessica Azulay, program director of the advocacy group Alliance for a Green Economy, pointed out that reducing energy consumption is critical because it makes it easier to achieve one of the state’s most talked about goals: the transition to 70 percent of renewable energy in 2030. The less energy we use, the fewer renewable energy sources we need to achieve that goal. The current outlook “is very problematic,” she said.
One more target for 2025 is uncertain: this target is self-imposed by the Hochul government. In January, officials said the cap-and-invest program to price emissions would start early next year. But when asked this week if that was still the case, a DEC spokesperson declined to commit to a start date. Even if the agency were to issue draft rules this summer, the required public review would make it challenging to finalize them by the end of the year.
Some advocates are beginning to question whether Hochul will move forward with the program at all after her recent about-face on congestion pricing, in which she cited known concerns about costs. Hochul caused a furore last year when she proposed overhauling the way the state counts methane emissions, a move she said would reduce the costs a carbon cap could impose on New Yorkers. She was quickly forced to shelve that proposal, but her administration has since proposed other cost-cutting measures that could make the program less effective.
On top of already missed deadlines, Hochul’s dithering does not bode well for the state’s ability to meet the larger goals looming in 2030 — specifically a 40 percent reduction in emissions from 1990 levels.
The large-scale renewable projects at the heart of these goals are still crawling along. Over the past two years, the prospects for wind and solar energy deployment in New York have deteriorated, mainly due to the cancellation of major offshore wind projects. Under current contracts, 59 percent of New York’s energy is expected to come from renewables by 2030, according to the State Energy Authority. That’s less than the 66 percent the state projected in 2022.
Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters, said cleaning up every other part of the economy “depends on us having a clean electrical grid.”
“That’s really the basis of how we’re going to achieve the goals overall,” Tighe said. “And honestly, that’s the easiest part.” But she said economic headwinds, rather than the government, were largely responsible for the recent setbacks in the state’s sustainable development.
More broadly, Tighe – who has worked at the DEC for 11 years and is in the running to take the agency’s top job – thinks it is understandable that the Hochul government is moving more slowly than the climate law requires.
“Sometimes the Legislature sets very ambitious deadlines that are inconsistent with the time frame needed to develop rules,” she said.
This is especially true for rules that govern complex policies, such as an economy-wide price on carbon. “We’re not talking about just one narrow, single industry… we’re dealing with the entire economy,” Tighe said. “It’s very important to get it right.”
Others are less willing to give the Hochul government permission.
“These were the deadlines set by the legislature. and they are the minimum deadlines we need to stay on track to be consistent with the Paris Agreement,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. “We are one of the most prosperous states in the most prosperous country in the world, and people look to us as an example.”
Gerrard said the delays could prompt a lawsuit against the government, although no one has yet publicly threatened legal action.
Even some longtime critics of the climate law agree the state is setting a bad precedent.
“As a general rule, when state government doesn’t follow its own laws, it weakens the rule of law,” said Ken Girardin, research director at the Empire Center, a conservative think tank. He said the law’s heavy reliance on executive leadership is one of its main pitfalls, calling it “a blank check for the regulatory state.”
“What the Climate Act asked of the DEC went far beyond what courts have considered the proper delegation of authority to government agencies,” Girardin said. Still, he, too, would like to see Hochul’s draft rules for the cap-and-invest program — if only because he expects they will be tested in court once they are finalized.
Despite the bill’s uneven progress, the Hochul administration routinely boasts of New York’s “nation-leading” climate action. In response to New York Focus’ questions about this story, the DEC highlighted several recent actions the state has taken to reduce emissions, including requiring all new cars sold after 2035 to be electric and tightening restrictions on two powerful greenhouse gases used in refrigeration and electrical equipment. .
“Parts of this are moving across agencies,” said Raya Salter, an environmental justice advocate and attorney and member of the Climate Action Council, which was charged with crafting the state’s climate plan. But at the same time, industry opposition to the most far-reaching parts of the climate law has grown, and politicians have not acted to implement the mandates, Salter said.
For the few climate hawks who expressed doubts about the CLCPA when it was passed, the past five years have been a troubling vindication.
“Goals and a process are nice, but what really needs to happen are the things that make it real,” said Pete Sikora, director of climate and inequality campaigns at the advocacy group New York Communities for Change. “And it’s the things that make it real that don’t happen.”
