Et, Tu, NY Gov. Hochul?! Declares local weather disaster has change into too costly to handle – ‘My job is to ensure we have enough power to keep the lights on, keep rates affordable’
https://archive.ph/wnIgu
By Mackenzie Shuman
Excerpt: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, unhappy with a recent Albany County Supreme Court Justice’s ruling, said the state may need to modify its landmark climate law because it has become too expensive to follow.
The governor’s reaction was in response to Justice Julian D. Schreibman’s Friday ruling that forces the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to issue regulations to ensure that the state meets its greenhouse gas reduction goals.
The 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act says the state must reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030, and 85% by 2050.
The CLCPA had set a Jan. 1, 2024, deadline to write and enact the new rules, which still have not been published.
Environmental advocates in the state – PUSH Buffalo, Citizens Action of New York, Sierra Club and WE ACT for Environmental Justice – filed a lawsuit in April against the DEC for failing to publish the rules. Now, the DEC must issue the rules setting a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions by Feb. 6, 2026, according to the justice’s Friday ruling.
In a written statement sent to The Buffalo News, Hochul expressed her displeasure with the ruling.
“My job is to ensure we have enough power to keep the lights on, keep rates affordable and attract major economic development projects,” she said in a written statement to The News. “New York has been, and will continue to be, a leader in climate action, but the judge’s decision fails to factor in the realities of today that include a federal government hostile to clean energy projects, the continuing impacts of post-COVID high inflation and potential energy shortages expected downstate as soon as next year. We plan to review all our options, including working with the Legislature to modify the CLCPA and appeal, in order to protect New Yorkers from higher costs.”
But environmental advocates said Hochul’s response was not encouraging.
“Of course, we must invest in energy affordability – we also must invest an urgency for a holistic solution to the climate crisis and its direct and residual impacts to frontline communities,” said Dawn Wells-Clyburn, executive director of PUSH Buffalo, in a statement to The News. “Everyday working-class people are not intimidated by the struggle for justice. Likewise, we need our elected officials to stand firm on the law.”
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Caroline Chen, director of environmental justice at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest: “If they back down … I think it would be more difficult for the state to claim that there are still climate leaders,” she said, “because they would be showing that they’re stepping back instead of stepping into the problem.”
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