More than two-thirds of the Democratic majority in the New York state Senate oppose changes to the state’s climate law, as a looming budget battle between Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders continues to overshadow other issues at the state Capitol.
Twenty-nine Democratic state senators out of a total of 41 sent a letter to Hochul on Thursday, urging her to refrain from an all-but-announced push to make changes to the law, which sets the framework for the state’s emissions reduction goals.
A group of 29 state senators, led off by @LizKrueger, sent a letter to @GovKathyHochul this morning saying they “categorically oppose any effort to roll back New York’s nation leading climate law” and urging Hochul to “stand strong in the face of misinformation” re affordability pic.twitter.com/2WZW7CtXuF
— Jack Arpey (@jack_arpey) March 5, 2026
The letter was sent to Hochul on Thursday morning and shared with Spectrum News 1.
The effort to preempt the issue’s official entrance into the budget discussion was led by state Sen. Liz Krueger, who leads the powerful Finance Committee. In the letter, the senators “categorically oppose any effort to roll back New York’s nation-leading climate law, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” also known as the CLCPA.
Krueger pulled no punches in an interview Thursday afternoon:
“I believe very strongly that she has been peddled an enormous amount of misinformation,” Krueger said of the governor. “She has decided to go down a road of trying to convince the rest of us that we have no choice but to turn our backs on what we know are the right answers and shift into a more Trump-like set of policies.”
The letter takes aim at a NYSERDA memo that has rocked the Capitol for the past week, insisting that the law, as written, will increase utility costs. It lays out that upstate homes using oil and natural gas could see their bills rise more than $4,000 annually, while those in New York City could expect to pay an average of $2,300 more per year.
The senators point out that the memo is squarely built around implementation of a cap-and-invest program for which the state Department of Environmental Conservation has yet to release overdue rules. That lack of concrete regulations spurred a lawsuit brought by environmental advocates, adding additional pressure around the law’s deadlines and framework.
The program would generate revenue for climate initiatives associated with the state’s goals through fees for emissions allowances.
“The recent three-page memo from NYSERDA purporting to show unacceptable costs of implementing CLCPA erroneously conflates CLCPA with a Cap & Invest program, treating them as one and the same when they are two entirely separate issues,” the letter reads. “Further, the memo is based on a specific Cap & Invest program design that has not been shared with the public and clearly does not include any price guardrails, with a completely unrealistic carbon price. As such, the analysis simply cannot be treated as a serious contribution to the debate.”
Krueger stressed that there are other ways to move forward that don’t involve rollbacks to the law itself.
“It doesn’t explicitly require a cap-and-invest model,” she said of the climate law,” she said. “Just that you have to come up with some way to be paying for all of this,” adding that the law also allows for changes to dates and deadlines if there are concerns relating to reliability.
Twelve Senate Democrats declined to sign the letter.
Many of them are from upstate or suburban districts, and multiple told Spectrum News 1 that it was a matter of not wanting to sign a “categorical” rejection of a policy proposal the governor hasn’t made yet — seemingly a willingness to hear Hochul out.
“I think that’s a reasonable point,” Krueger said. “But it’s also the reason I thought the letter was so important. This is a huge, important issue. I think the worst way to approach it is to have nothing in writing and then to slide something in at the last minute as part of the budget. It’s not a budget issue.”
Ken Lovett, Hochul’s senior communications adviser on energy and environment, responded to the letter and Krueger’s comments, pointing to the governor’s sustained arguments in recent weeks that some of the law’s components as written are of another time, lagging in progress and threatening affordability due largely to factors related to the pandemic, inflation and Trump administration policy hostile to progressive environmental policy.
“The only thing ‘Trump-like’ here is denying the affordability crisis,” he said. “Gov. Hochul has been clear that making New York more affordable for families is her top priority and her administration will continue to negotiate with the Legislature in good faith to advance her all-of-the-above approach to keep the lights on and costs down for New Yorkers.”
While there appears to be a similar letter picking up steam in the Assembly, the effort had not yet made the same headway as the Senate’s as of Thursday evening.
On Wednesday, Deborah Glick, chair of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee, told Spectrum News 1 she is confident Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie will telegraph concerns from the committee in budget negotiations.
“He listens to the members and I certainly have expressed and will continue to express that A. it doesn’t belong in the budget, B. it is not responsible for rising costs — if anything, that is the fossil fuel industry,” she said.
As Senate finance chair, Krueger has a unique role in the crafting of the state budget. She has, on occasion, spoken out on the Senate floor against portions of bloated budget bills that she feels obligated to vote for because they include other measures and funding important to constituents.
She said, depending on how the conversation plays out in the coming weeks, this time she may vote ‘no’ on the portion of the budget that contains the changes.
“Historically, I have always come to the point of view that as finance chair, I have an obligation to vote yes even if it is very painful,” she said. “It is possible I could get to the point where I just say, I can’t do it. I have to be a no. This is too important.”
Republicans in the state’s legislative minorities have long railed against the law and pointed to the number of Democrats who declined to sign on.
“They named themselves. Now to the Democrats who didn’t sign this, BRING THE CLCPA REPEAL TO THE FLOOR,” state Sen. Mark Walczyk posted on social media. “There are 63 Senators and 29 who don’t care about energy prices – we can do this.”