After weeks of public teasing, Hochul outlines proposals to roll back climate law mandates

Gov. Kathy Hochul loves to say she doesn’t negotiate in public. But when it comes to certain issues, like the state’s climate law, it seems she is willing to make an exception. 

The governor sketched out her long-awaited proposal for rolling back parts of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in an op-ed in Empire Report on Friday. After a long wind up discussing her commitment to the climate and soaring energy prices necessitating changes, Hochul offered the first concrete details on how she would like to amend the law. Most notably, she said she wants to change how the state accounts for methane gas in the atmosphere in favor of a less stringent method that would make New York appear closer to hitting its goals without any other changes. “Otherwise, these impossible emission reduction targets…only used by NY and one other state…will ensure our failure despite all of our efforts and billions of dollars spent,” Hochul wrote in the op-ed. 

Making such a change to the accounting methods alarmed lawmakers – who still have not seen any specific language on the governor’s proposal. “You cannot change science, and the issue of the accounting method, regardless of whether it is consistent with other states or, even an international body, the science has advanced,” Assembly Member Deborah Glick told City & State. Hochul has publicly spoken about wanting to shift from a 20-year global warming potential for greenhouse gases to the more common 100-year period. 

But Glick said the science had already changed before legislators passed the law in 2019, and the shorter timeframe is essential to properly account for methane gas, which has a shorter-term but more significant impact than carbon dioxide. “The accounting methodology sounds very arcane and very fungible, but it's not,” she said. 

In addition to the accounting change, Hochul proposed setting a new deadline of 2030 for implementing mandatory regulations to ensure climate goals are met. Her administration has already blown past the existing deadline to implement a proposed cap-and-invest program to satisfy that requirement, and environmental groups have ongoing litigation to compel the state to issue those regulations. A judge ordered the state to release the cap-and-invest regulations, as required by the law, which her administration is appealing, so now Hochul is trying to get the law changed. 

The governor has not proposed a change to the ultimate 2050 goal of an 85% emission reduction from 1990 levels, but suggested an additional, to be determined, 2040 interim goal. “Nothing else in the CLCPA is changing regarding the existing statewide emission limit targets and these new regulations would still require the state to make timely progress, ensuring long-term policy stability,” Hochul wrote. 

Right now, the op-ed is really all lawmakers have to go on. “Nobody has seen any paper at this point,” Glick said, explaining her conference was only orally briefed on the proposed changes. Glick joked that reporters may wind up seeing the language before legislators, and  state Sen. Liz Krueger actually asked City & State whether it had seen anything that the governor had put into writing besides the op-ed. “Seems she is negotiating in press snippets that are extremely inconsistent from day to day,” Krueger wrote in a text. A spokesperson for Hochul did not offer any additional language or information when asked.

The governor has spoken extensively in public about her desire to make changes to the CLCPA in recent weeks – and that’s the only place she has offered specifics about some of the changes she seeks. Her op-ed, for example, makes no explicit mention of the 20 versus 100 year accounting method for greenhouse gases. But Hochul brought it up to reporters at an unrelated press conference on Wednesday. “We're the only state in the nation under our law, other than Maryland – which followed our law and which I think they're rethinking – which measures emissions based on a 20 year period versus 100,” she said at the time. 

This isn’t the first time the governor has tried to change this accounting method. She quietly attempted the same thing in 2023 before reporting on the effort forced it out of her last-minute budget negotiations.

This time, Hochul has been laying the groundwork publicly for weeks, beginning with her budget director commenting on dire predicted utility price hikes if the climate law remained unchanged, followed soon after by releasing a memo from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority offering evidence from those claims. Hochul used an interview at a Politico summit last week to formally confirm that she wanted to have the climate law changes included in the budget – though at the time she still had offered no specifics on what she wanted other than lamenting energy prices in public.

Assembly Member Al Stirpe confirmed during a virtual press conference that legislators had not yet seen language from the governor’s office. He further said today was the first time his chamber had really seen a concrete proposal at all. “There were all sorts of claims flying around, but nobody knew exactly what she was going to do,” Stirpe said. He believes there is room for compromise on some of the deadlines if that is what the governor wants, though he was firm that the accounting method for emissions cannot change. “You have to start with an honest discussion,” he said. “If you can start there, then there's room for compromise.” 

Glick offered similar sentiments. “You can change deadlines; you can't change science,” she said of the 20-year accounting method. Glick said she understands the governor’s rationale that a very different economic environment now compared to 2019, as well as a hostile federal administration, have offered unexpected roadblocks. Glick said she was open to delaying implementation of the cap-and-invest program as long as all progress does not stop. “The reality is that as long as we are still making strides and still advancing renewables and, to the extent of our ability, expanding renewables – what's tangible is most important,” Glick said. 

Environmental advocates were less charitable, especially given how the governor has chosen to negotiate the issue. “This should not be a secret deal on the budget,” said Liz Moran, New York policy advocate for Earthjustice. “This should be a public conversation, and at the end of the day, the budget should stay squarely focused on what is going to cut energy costs for New Yorkers.” Hochul has said explicitly that the climate law is not the reason for high energy rates now, and proposed changes to the law are meant to address potential future hikes rather than lower current energy costs.

Moran and others like Megan Ahearn, the executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, are calling on state lawmakers to reject Hochul’s proposed changes in their entirety. “What we say and what we need the Legislature to do is to stay firm: No secret deals in the budget,” she said.