Gov. Hochul talks green energy (photo: Governor's Office)
As Governor Kathy Hochul and the Legislature continue to hammer out the details of the overdue $230 billion state budget, there are major climate and energy policies at stake that environmental advocates say are crucial to meeting New York’s climate goals.
Already about three weeks late, the state budget has been held up over the governor’s insistence on further changes to the bail law and wrangling with the Legislature over her ambitious “Housing Compact” agenda. But there is also unresolved debate about many other important topics, including climate and energy policies. The governor, two houses of the Legislature, and advocates have expressed various priorities, some of which may be accomplished in a grand budget deal with other issues that could wait for the post-budget legislative session.
Hochul’s Marquee Climate Proposals
In her executive budget, Hochul proposed several major climate policy items including, chiefly, a “cap-and-invest” program that sets declining caps on greenhouse gas emissions and requires major greenhouse gas emitters and fuel distributors to purchase allowances for their emissions.
The revenue raised from the program would be reinvested in the green energy economy, job creation, and a minimum of 35% into disadvantaged communities that have historically suffered from environmental injustice. About $1 billion of the revenue raised by the program would go to providing a Climate Action Rebate to New Yorkers to cover higher energy costs.
The cap would be reduced every year, in order to meet the state’s overarching emissions goals set by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) of 2019. The act requires a 40% reduction in statewide emissions by 2030 and an 85% reduction by 2050 compared to 1990 emissions levels. It mandates that 70% of the state’s electricity should come from renewable sources by 2030 and that 100% of the state’s electricity should be emissions free by 2040.
In December, the state’s Climate Action Council, created by the CLCPA, approved a mandated Scoping Plan with recommendations for meeting the targets set by the law. That plan informed Hochul’s policy agenda released in January and her subsequent executive budget in February. But questions remain whether the governor and Legislature will take strong enough action to scale up renewable energy projects and whether the state will have the ability to produce enough clean energy, particularly in the face of political opposition from Republicans, lobbying by the fossil fuel industry, and criticism from everyday New Yorkers who may face higher energy costs.
“We have the nation's most ambitious plan. We're proud of it. But I am never one to rest on our laurels. Not now, not ever,” Hochul said of the state’s climate plan in her executive budget presentation in February. “We'll continue to ensure a cleaner, healthier environment for future generations. We'll make those investments today that promote energy affordability, reduce emissions and invest in clean air and water. And one of those ways is to implement a nation-leading Cap and Invest program. This will limit greenhouse emissions, it prioritizes health and it's established to ease the financial burden on hardworking families, homeowners and renters, especially our seniors who are so worried and struggling to pay their utility bills, especially during this brutally cold winter.”
Earlier this month, as Politico New York first reported, the governor proposed a change to the CLCPA that would have revised the timeline for measuring methane emissions, essentially weakening the law. But she quickly walked back the proposal in the face of widespread outrage from Democrats and environmental advocates.
However, Basil Seggos, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, indicated to Politico that the attempt to rewrite the law may not be entirely off the table. “The other other elements that we’ve discussed recently may take time to get done. We may get it done during the budget. That may happen during the session; it may take the course of a year,” he said. “The fundamental takeaway is it’s full steam ahead for cap-and-invest with the climate action rebate and any other elements we’ll take up as soon as we can.”
In a separate interview earlier this month with News 10, he said, “We need to develop a program that will work for New York. We want to remain at the vanguard of climate action nationally, right? But it must be affordable.”
“Governor Hochul's Executive Budget makes transformative investments to make New York more affordable, more livable and safer, and she continues to work with the legislature to deliver a final budget that meets the needs of all New Yorkers,” said a spokesperson for the governor, in a statement.
Hochul also put forth an all-electric buildings proposal to ban fossil fuel hookups in new construction starting in 2025, a phased-in ban on the sale and installation of fossil fuel heating equipment in existing buildings, and a version of the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA), allowing but not requiring the New York Power Authority to build public renewable energy projects.
She also included other major investments in her proposed budget, such as $500 million in clean water infrastructure funding, $400 million for the Environmental Protection Fund, $400 million to provide relief to New Yorkers with high energy bills, and $200 million to improve state parks. The state is also set to move ahead on implementation of the $4.2 billion Environmental Bond Act that voters approved this past fall.
The state has already completed many renewable energy projects – including eight major ones in the last six months – and has several others underway or in the offing including wind, solar and hydroelectric infrastructure. Last year, Hochul also approved two new pipelines, the largest transmission projects in the state in 50 years, that will deliver renewable energy from upstate New York and Canada to New York City.
Negotiations Between the Governor and Legislature
Between the governor’s proposal and the Senate’s and Assembly’s respective one-house budget resolutions, there are various points of difference which are now being negotiated.
For instance, the Senate embraced the cap-and-invest program, with stronger guidelines, while the Assembly did not. The Senate also endorsed a full-strength BPRA after passing it last year and again this year, while the Assembly has not acted on the proposal at all. The Senate also backed the Waste Reduction & Recycling Act proposed by Hochul, while the Assembly did not.
Both houses have supported the All-Electric Buildings Act that would ban gas hookups in new construction but with faster timelines than what the governor proposed.
The Senate called for $500 million for the Environmental Protection Fund, while the Assembly allocated $435 million. And both houses proposed $600 million clean water infrastructure funding, surpassing the executive budget by $100 million.
Democrats in the Senate seem more focused on ensuring that climate policy is included in the budget, while the Assembly has shown some reluctance to expeditiously pass complicated non-fiscal items, with Speaker Carl Heastie repeatedly saying over the years that he does not like to do policy in the budget.
Among the other major proposals floated in the Senate include the Climate Change Superfund Act, which would collect $75 billion over 25 years from oil and gas producers to fund infrastructure projects, and the NY HEAT (Home Energy Affordable Transition) Act, which would ensure that families don’t spend more than 6% of their income on energy bills.
Perspective from Key Legislators
“We in the Senate believe we need to work with the governor to put guardrails around the cap-and-invest program and how that money is going to be spent, especially. So we are engaging on that,” said Senator Pete Harckham, a Westchester Democrat who chairs the Senate’s Committee on Environmental Conservation. Harckham has sponsored the Climate and Community Protection Fund bill, which was included in the Senate one-house budget, and which would ensure that funds raised by the cap-and-invest program are spent on the goals of the CLCPA including improving building efficiency, energy infrastructure and public transit, job training for impacted workers, energy affordability rebates, and more. “We're talking about billions of dollars annually so it's important that that money does not go to the general fund,” he added.
Harckham did say that certain extended producer responsibility (EPR) proposals aimed at packaging reduction and recycling – which Hochul has also voiced support for – will be addressed after the budget is approved. “That will be the big lift after the budget,” he said of taking on waste.
He also didn’t preclude the possibility that major proposals like the All-Electric Buildings Act or the Build Public Renewables Act would be on the post-budget session agenda (the Legislature is in session through June). “We’d do them as standalones after the budget, but my personal hope is we get a nice package done in the budget,” said Harckham.
Assemblymember Deborah Glick, chair of the Assembly’s Committee on Environmental Conservation, agreed that those policies are likely to be on the post-budget agenda. “Generally speaking, the Assembly's position has always been that we don't put big policy issues in a budget, and that is why the budget is late,” the Manhattan Democrat said in a phone interview.
State Senator Kevin Parker, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Telecommunications, said in a phone interview that some version of cap-and-invest, All-Electric Buildings, and Build Public Renewables are likely to be approved in the budget.
After the budget, he said one of his top priorities will be to “continue to battle against the cost of energy,” considering that New Yorkers are still struggling with utility arrears because of the pandemic. “We really need to find ways to lower those costs and get them under control…it doesn’t make sense to have sustainable energy that you can’t afford,” he said.
Additional Voices
Regardless of whether environmental policies are approved in the budget or before the Legislature concludes it works for the year, legislators and advocates say it's vital that major action should happen this year to follow the state’s climate scoping plan established under the CLCPA. The state will also have significant resources at its disposal with the $4.2 billion bond act approved last November and the federal Inflation Reduction Act, which makes major climate investments, among other funding and policy advancements.
The NY Renews coalition of more than 300 groups, including environmental organizations, labor unions, community groups and faith communities, has been pursuing a three-part Climate, Jobs & Justice Package to push the state on the various policies currently under consideration. The coalition supports the cap-and-invest program, and is urging its passage along with the Climate Change Superfund Act and the Climate and Community Protection Fund in the budget.
“The climate crisis is an existential crisis, which is already impacting every single worker,” said Katherine Nadeau, NY Renews steering committee member and program director of Catskill Mountainkeeper. “And we need the governor and the legislature focused on not only responding to climate impacts but also working to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.”
“There is an ecological clock ticking that is far bigger than Albany,” she said, insisting that the state needs to hold polluters accountable while investing in the communities that have been hardest hit by climate change. “If the governor and the Legislature let the budget clock run out without setting up the framework that will allow us to keep New Yorkers safe from the worst impacts of the climate, this will be a tremendous missed opportunity.”
Pat McClellan, policy director of New York League of Conservation Voters (NYLCV), a nonprofit group, said the cap-and-invest program must be included in the budget. “We’re concerned that if they don't do it as part of the budget, they're not going to get to it post-budget and we’ve lost another year of making enough climate progress,” he said.
NYLCV is also part of the Upgrade New York coalition, including labor unions, the building industry, and climate justice advocates, pushing the state to decarbonize all state facilities by 2040. “The state should be leading the way and putting its money where its mouth is,” he said.
Republicans have broadly pushed back against the governor’s and Legislature’s climate agenda, arguing that the rate of transitioning to clean energy will drive energy costs higher for New Yorkers already struggling with utility bills, make it harder for businesses to operate and drive an outmigration to states with lower costs and friendlier policies.
“No one can tell us how much [the CLCPA] will cost,” said Senator Rob Ortt, the Republican minority leader, pointing to the governor’s own attempt at revising the law as evidence that even Democrats believe it is flawed.
Ortt – who dubbed the governor’s major climate idea the “cap-and-tax” proposal – argued that Democrats have turned to taxing job-creating businesses to fund the state’s climate goals instead of the politically unpopular decision to tax consumers. “It’s going to drive these companies out of New York,” he said.
But his biggest objection was that the rush to move away from fossil fuels will leave the state with an unreliable energy grid. “My argument is the State of New York should be working on a diversified energy portfolio,” he said. Without a mix of energy sources including fossil fuels and renewable energy, he said the state would suffer more power outages at crucial moments that can affect health and safety such as during the major snowstorm in Buffalo in December.
“Even if you think this is the most important thing facing the country and the state, there’s got to be a smart way to do this. It might be a slower way, it might be less coercive, and that's probably the better way,” said Ortt.
He did seem resigned to accepting that some form of the All-Electric Buildings Act would get approved, since there seems to be three-way agreement among the governor and legislative majorities on the proposal.
Democrats have, of course, said they are working to protect businesses, and that climate action will also be good for consumers and the economy.
“We're trying to put some guardrails in place to protect those low- to moderate-income [New Yorkers] and small businesses from any impacts,” Harckham said.
“Consumers are eventually going to be paying less on their utility bills, because energy will be less expensive,” he added. “We’ll lower our health care costs and we'll be creating 130,000 high-paying union jobs. So there are a lot of upsides to this as we go forward.”
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Note - this article has been updated to reflect that the new proposed Climate Change Superfund Act would raise $75 billion over 25 years, not $30 billion over ten years.
Gov. Hochul discusses gun violence prevention funding plans (photo: Governor's Office)
Acrimony in state budget talks over bail and discovery reform belies broad agreement between Governor Kathy Hochul and the Legislature on putting more than $330 million toward combating gun violence.
Shootings have always plagued New York's cities but became a major public focus in recent years amid a pandemic-era spike in gun violence following decades of decline. Four out of five shooting victims in New York City are Black, most of them young men, and officials have been pursuing a suite of solutions to prevent violence and human losses that reverberate throughout communities.
A cornerstone of the governor's criminal justice agenda is a proposed $337 million for violence prevention and intervention – money that will go to new police units and task forces, youth employment, and local organizations focused on stemming the factors that lead to crime and gang-involvement. The "historic investments" include a $110 million increase from last fiscal year's budget at a time when gun violence remains above pre-pandemic levels despite recent drops that followed jumps in 2020 and 2021.
The roughly $230 billion state budget is more than two weeks late as Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, all Democrats, wrangle over the governor's insistence on further watering down bail reforms passed in 2019, among other high-profile issues. Drawn out negotiations have forced the parties to pass two state budget extenders to ensure state bills are paid, with a third on the way this week.
But on the flip side of the policy debate is a question of resources to mitigate gun violence, and on that front there is little daylight among negotiators.
Both the Senate’s and Assembly's budget resolutions included the same $337 million allocation that Hochul had in her February executive budget (with an additional $10 million from the Assembly, and $20 million from the Senate, for a "violence interrupter" program called SNUG Street Outreach).
In total, their gun-violence plans contain a mix of police, social service, and unspecified funding, according to a Gotham Gazette analysis of line items provided by the Governor's Office.
Tucked in the governor's executive budget was roughly $126 million earmarked for gun violence prevention with few spending requirements and not subject to competitive bidding laws or review by the New York State Comptroller. That means, if passed, the governor would have the discretion to spend many millions of tax dollars on favored programs and groups, whether law enforcement or community organizations, or funnel it to other entities under the broad purpose of reducing gun violence.
"We're going to keep investing in our communities, those that are most under siege from gun violence and redeploying our State Police to be that extra help on the ground that the cities are asking us for," Hochul said when she announced her executive budget February 1.
"We cannot rest until every single New Yorker feels safe in their homes, in their streets, on the subway, their places of work," she said the next month, at a March 22 press conference announcing a drop in shootings and homicides after two major election cycles, in 2021 and 2022, dominated by crime. She used the opportunity to again tout the $337 million allocation.
Where the Money May Go
In Hochul’s budget, the total anti-gun violence agenda skews toward law enforcement, with at least $120.2 million earmarked for state and local police and correction agencies, prosecutors, and crime task forces. That funding comes on top of hundreds of millions more from other state funding pots.
Of the $120 million, more than $58 million would go directly to the state police operating budget. According to a spokesperson for Hochul, that money includes personnel, equipment, and supplies to support gun trafficking interdiction units, gun tracing, social media analysis, and participation in federal task forces. The largest portion is to the State Police’s "community stabilization units," which provide those resources to local police departments.
Upwards of $36 million would go to a homicide reduction strategy known as Gun Involved Violence Elimination, or GIVE. In her State of the State agenda, Hochul said the funding will be used to hire 150 local police officers and prosecutors focused solely on guns in the jurisdictions with the highest shooting rates outside of New York City.
Hochul is also looking to establish a new "Crime Analysis Center" in New York City, which, along with the 10 existing centers, would provide further state aid to police and prosecutors.
Earlier this year, the governor also announced the expansion of a pilot program known as "Supervision Against Violent Engagement," or SAVE, run by the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, to step up its surveillance of people on parole who are suspected of being at a high-risk of reoffending.
A smaller chunk – $92.6 million – is for non-law enforcement services, including $65.1 million for youth employment, $25 million for community-based violence interrupter groups, and Hochul's Office of Gun Violence Prevention, now in its second year. Violence interrupters deploy outreach workers and resources in low-income communities to divert individuals, particularly young people, from gangs and criminal activity.
"People who are truly trying to get to the right answers want to look at the data and they want to figure out what we can do to help community actually stem this tide of violence, whether it's investing more resources…trying to deal with the proliferation of guns," Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins told reporters this week in response to questions about bail in the budget.
"Follow the data, meet the community needs where they are and be honest with ourselves that there are a lot of things we can do," she said.
Another $105.1 million is for nonspecific "crime reduction." That allocation, along with another $21 million for SNUG Outreach ($31 million in the Assembly's resolution, and $41 million in the Senate's), includes language that exempts it from competitive procurement and the independent review of the Office of the State Comptroller, which are in place to ensure tax dollars are spent efficiently and in the public interest. In total, Gotham Gazette found more than a third of Hochul's gun violence proposal is not subject to competitive bidding or full comptroller oversight, particularly the ability to review decisions on selecting vendors before contracts are signed.
Spending in the Shadows
Mark Johnson, a spokesperson for Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, condemned the maneuver, which is used to circumvent laws in place to prevent politically-motivated decisions and is part of a much larger “lump sum” pattern.
"Exempting these funds from a competitive process that is required by state law is not in the public interest and undermines the state’s ability to ensure the best value is achieved and taxpayer dollars are protected," Johnson said in a statement to Gotham Gazette.
A spokesperson for Hochul defended the noncompetitive spending as necessary to expedite urgently needed funding for what Hochul and others have identified as a crisis. The spokesperson noted that the State Comptroller retains audit authority. Heastie and Stewart-Cousins' offices did not respond to Gotham Gazette inquiries.
That untethered money includes Hochul's signature $70 million allocation for communities to rebuild after gun violence. The governor has touted it as an investment in neighborhoods like Buffalo's East Side, which has some of the highest rates of gun violence in the state's second largest city and was devastated by a mass shooting at a supermarket last year. The pot is subdivided into $20 million for government-nonprofit partnerships to "serve the needs of communities and residents" and $50 million in capital funds for "innovative crime-reduction strategies."
"This was a city that was traumatized, but you realize this happens not just in the aftermath of a mass shooting, but it's the day-to-day-to-day," Hochul said in March of the $70 million included in her executive budget.
"We're also focusing on $31 million for crime reduction, youth justice, and gang prevention programs," she said, calling it "a holistic approach" to driving down shootings. The budget gives the executive branch latitude to spend this money on a wide range of law enforcement or social programs with little specificity.
Gotham Gazette cross-referenced these pots against a database of lump sum funding included in a recent report from Citizens Budget Commission and Reinvent Albany. The government watchdogs identified $14.8 billion such funding across Hochul’s entire executive budget.
Despite spreading hundreds of millions of state dollars on dozens of programs, there is little evidence of how these initiatives impact communities beyond the broadest measurements of shootings and other crime.
Support for the Agenda
Hochul received praise for her agenda from public safety advocates and local elected officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, who has centered gun crimes and quality-of-life in his first year-plus on the job.
In a February statement responding to Hochul's executive budget, Adams called the public safety agenda "robust" and praised the governor for including money “that would protect New Yorkers by investing in upstream solutions, helping to address the problem of recidivism, and making commendable investments to hire more lawyers to reduce case backlogs.”
In addition to the $318 million gun violence spending, Hochul included another $87 million for prosecutors, including to implement 2019 changes to the state discovery laws. The Senate and Assembly each included more funding, along with a significant boost to public defenders, who were left almost completely out of Hochul's spending plan.
"The city is committed to fighting for additional resources to ensure we can address the ongoing bottlenecks in our criminal justice system," Adams added.
When asked to comment on the full scope of the governor's anti-gun violence proposal, a spokesperson for the mayor referred Gotham Gazette to the February statement.
"The Governor’s budget is well-crafted," said Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission, a nonprofit public safety advocacy group. "By spreading funds over a wide range of activities - from community based interventions to forensics to law enforcement, the budget acknowledges and supports the notion that reducing gun violence is a complex, multi-faceted, challenge requiring a comprehensive approach."
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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette
Gov. Hochul and other state leaders (photo: Governor's Office)
April 14, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: Breaking Down State Budget Negotiations, with Liz Benjamin & Ken Lovett
Liz Benjamin and Ken Lovett, two veteran Albany journalists now in public affairs consulting, joined the show to discuss New York state budget negotiations, the power dynamics at play in the capital, key issues being negotiated among Governor Hochul and the Legislature, and more.
Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.