Gov. Kathy Hochul during a tour of the new Sol Apartments building in Troy earlier this month. (Will Waldron/Times Union)
Will Waldron/Times Union
No governor in modern times has done more to protect our environment than I have.
But I also recognize my responsibility to make sure that protecting our environment does not come at the expense of working families. I learned that lesson growing up in western New York at the time of Love Canal. I saw what happens when government looks the other way. I also know what happens when people are forced to carry the cost of failures they didn’t create.
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The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act was passed in 2019, before the global pandemic, high post-COVID inflation and supply-chain issues drove up project costs. It also was passed before the return of climate change denier Donald Trump to the White House. With Trump and the Republican-led Congress, we went from a federal government partner providing historic investments to states for the transition to clean energy to a president whose “Drill baby drill” mantra supporting gas, oil and coal has taken us backward.
But as we seek to adjust to this new reality, I have yet to hear how we are supposed to move forward without changes to the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act when we are up against a president who has vowed to block all new offshore wind projects and has repeatedly tried to kill the ones already under construction, including two here in New York.
In an unheard-of pay-not-to-play scheme, Trump’s disdain for renewable energy projects led him to actually pay a foreign company $1 billion to walk away from offshore wind projects in the United States. And alongside his allies in Congress, he is dismantling the very incentives that made wind, solar, electric vehicles and other clean energy investments possible in the first place.
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I have fought back at every turn. I protected our offshore wind projects. I defended congestion pricing. And when I was pressured to allow fracking in New York, I said no.
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But now, after advocates sued, a court ordered that the Department of Environmental Conservation must implement regulations regarding statewide greenhouse gas emissions that meet our 2030 statutory targets — a timeline that no longer matches our current economic, political or energy reality.
If we do not win our appeal and we do nothing to change the law, the outcome is clear: higher energy bills. Higher costs passed down to families. A grid stretched too thin.
I refuse to let New Yorkers pay the price for a plan that no longer reflects the world we are living in.
We can protect both the planet and people’s wallets at the same time. In fact, we have to. Because a transition people cannot afford is a transition that will not last.
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That is why I am working with the Legislature to make targeted, common-sense updates to the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Not to walk away from our targets, but to make sure we reach them. Not to lower our ambition, but to make sure we can reach it. We simply need more time, which is why I am pushing to extend the date by which we would need to have the regulations in place and to change our emissions accounting formula to reflect the method used by 48 other states and the international community.
Goals alone do not reduce emissions. Projects do. Infrastructure does. And those things require a system that is reliable, affordable and built to last.
We need an all-of-the-above approach that includes an array of energy options, including more wind and solar and new nuclear power plants, that is as practical as it is ambitious.
That means building an energy system that can meet demand without forcing families to choose between paying their food and medical bills or powering their homes.
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Some will say that any change is a step backward. I get their frustrations. I’m frustrated, too. This is not something I wanted or chose to do lightly. But clinging to one’s ideological beliefs and refusing to adapt is denying reality and is how progress stalls. Pretending nothing has changed is how we fall behind. Other states are confronting the same reality. They are adjusting because they understand the path to success is not a straight line.
In New York’s case, we have an added stressor other states are not facing: Our emission reduction targets are statutorily required, not an aspirational goal. If the court order stays and we do not change the law, New York families and businesses will be hit with thousands of dollars in extra energy costs as well as higher prices at the gas pumps. I cannot, and will not, allow that to happen.
I have fought to protect clean energy projects in this state. I have taken on federal interference. And I will continue to do everything I can to move our state toward a greener, healthier future.
But I will also make sure that future is within reach. Because if climate policy becomes another burden, we will lose the public trust needed to sustain it. And if we lose that trust, we lose everything.
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We do not have to choose between doing what is right and doing what is possible.
Kathy Hochul is the 57th governor of New York.
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