NYS adds funds for environmental work, along with climate law delay

ALBANY — The recently passed state budget includes more money for top environmental issues, like clean water, protecting Long Island’s estuaries, increasing renewable energy sources and weaning the state off fossil fuels.

But the changes to the state’s landmark climate law Gov. Kathy Hochul muscled through cast a pall over other progress environmentalists felt they made.

State Sen. Peter Harckham, (D-Peekskill) chair of the committee on Environmental Conservation, said the changes to the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act were "extremely disappointing."

"There were some smaller things in there that were quite positive ... they're sort of paled in comparison to the loss at the CLCPA level" he said.

The climate law set legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, requiring cuts of 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050, compared with 1990 levels.

But the 2027 budget pushes back the 2030 target, replacing it with a goal of 60% by 2040. And that target must be met only to the "maximum extent feasible and cost-effective."

The goal of an 85% reduction by 2050 is unchanged, though.

Hochul has said hostility in the Trump administration to clean energy technology like solar and wind would make it impossible to meet the deadlines.

The state was also facing a lawsuit from environmental groups seeking to force the creation of long-delayed rules under the law. The Hochul administration said that would have resulted in skyrocketing energy bills for consumers and industries.

Ken Lovett, senior  communications adviser on energy and environment for Hochul, said the budget included major new investments in water, the Environmental Protection Fund, clean energy and resiliency projects to address the impacts of climate change.

"Gov. Hochul also made clear she is committed to keeping the lights on and costs down for all New Yorkers, which is why she pushed for and won commonsense reforms to the state climate law to hold the line on rising utility costs in the face of reckless policies coming out of Washington." Lovett said in a statement.

But Harckham said the climate legislation was a health law as much as it was an environmental law.

One of the major changes was how the state counts methane emissions to align with how 48 other states do it.

That change slows the impetus for closing some of the worst polluting power plants in the state that have lead to increased asthma rates and other chronic diseases in surrounding neighborhoods, he said.

"For the communities that live around those plants, that's a big deal," he said.

Harckham said in the wake of the changes, he planned to push the state to be even more aggressive in expanding its solar energy production because it is cheaper and easier to scale.

"I am pushing solar as hard as I can," he said. "The answer to affordability and the answer to climate change is the same thing: It's clean energy."

Money for Long Island

Environmental groups did see some wins in the budget.

More than $78 million will be made available under the Water Quality Improvement Project, for municipal water treatment upgrades, abatement and control of polluted runoff, land acquisition projects for drinking water quality, habitat restoration and more, DEC Commissioner Amanda Lefton said at Robert Moses State Park on Tuesday.

Adrienne Esposito, director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said those funds could also help restore degraded sea grass beds and wetlands in the western bays and other areas.

The budget also contains $1 billion in the Sustainable Future Program, which includes $500 million for building emissions reductions, $300 million for renewable energy projects, up to $75 million for zero-emission transportation, $50 million for methane mitigation, and more.

There is also the Accelerate Solar for Affordable Power Act, which will modernize how utilities upgrade their systems, requiring cost tracking, greater transparency, and the use of smart-grid technology, in an effort prevent project cost overruns.

The budget also includes a $25 million increase, to $525 million, to the state’s Clean Water Infrastructure Act, which pays for sewage and septic system upgrades.

Those funds also "also pay for drinking water system upgrades, including lead pipe removal, which is a really important issue around the state," said Jessica Ottney Mahar, policy and strategy director for The Nature Conservancy’s New York state office.

Some environment advocates said state’s delayed climate law timeline would only make meeting other environmental challenges harder.

Robyn Silvestri, director of the nonprofit Save the Great South Bay, said funding clean water projects while undercutting the climate law was counterproductive. Especially in shallow water bodies like the Great South Bay, warm ocean temperatures are damaging the delicate marine ecology.

"Clean water and climate policy go hand in hand," she said. "When we roll back on climate policy, even if we’re putting more money into clean water, we are offsetting that with those rollbacks."

Environmental reviews

Local advocates were also dismayed by changes to the state’s environmental review process.

Hochul said the revisions will allow housing developments up to 300 units, or 100 units in "non-urbanized areas," to be exempt from a review of their possible environmental impact. The goal is to trim building costs and build housing more quickly.

But Esposito, of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, argued that building large scale housing on Long Island without an environmental review was a bad idea.

"How do you not look at water withdrawal and solid waste and energy demand and traffic and air quality? The ramifications of this are going to be very adverse," she said.

She said there’s no guarantee that loosening environmental review will lead to more affordable units. "The words ‘affordable housing’ never appeared anywhere in the text," she said.

The next step for the environmental movement is to hold Hochul accountable to the new commitments under the state’s climate law and get the law’s regulations implemented well before the 2028 deadline, said Sasan Sadat a senior researcher and Policy Analyst at Earthjustice.

Sadat said residents are seeing higher energy bills because of issues like deferred grid maintenance, delays in bringing more renewable energy sources online, volatile fuel prices, and damage driven by the climate crisis itself.

Dealing with those high costs will require significant investment.

Sadat acknowledged the Hochul administration’s $1 billion investment in the Sustainable Future Program but said it only scratches the surface of what environmentalists believe is warranted to reach the state’s clean energy goals.

Under a proposed cap and invest system, the state would raise $3.5 billion annually, money that could go toward programs like expanded public transit, home energy retrofits and electrification for low-income households, he said.

"The state was essentially robbed of those investments, and $1 billion is just a small down payment toward what we were going to see annually through that program," he said.

Beyond regulations under the climate law, there is other legislation environmentalists are pushing.

One policy, the Clean Deliveries Act, would require major delivery companies and large warehouses to account for their emissions and then develop plans to reduce them through means like zero emissions vehicles or rooftop solar arrays.

A policy like that doesn’t require federal action, Sadat noted, avoiding complications with the Trump administration.

But another goal is changing how the environmental movement convinces the state and the public of what it sees as necessary to address climate change.

"I think our leaders need to understand, and frankly, the environmental movement needs to do a better job communicating, this has to do with the very fundamentals of society," he said.

Harckham agreed the movement's messaging needs to improve.

"I think you know we need to focus more on the messaging around affordability, that good environmental policy is good energy policy, and it's good financial policy."