Legislature votes to roll back NY's landmark climate law

New York’s Legislature is expected to approve budget-linked changes to the state’s climate law. The 2019 requirement to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 40% by 2030 will be removed. A new target will require a 60% emissions cut by 2040, but the requirement will be qualified as achievable only “to the maximum extent feasible” and in a “cost-effective” manner. The existing benchmark to cut emissions 85% by 2050 will remain. The changes follow years of political conflict, with Gov. Kathy Hochul arguing the original mandates would raise costs for residents. Some Democrats opposed the rollback but did not stop it, and the budget is delayed.

"The legislation included in the state budget will eliminate a requirement that New York cut its greenhouse-gas emissions 40% by 2030, which was part of the state's 2019 climate law. It will be replaced by a new target - a 60% cut by 2040. But unlike the current law, the new 2040 target wouldn't be a mandate. Instead, the bill would require the state to achieve the 60% cut only "to the maximum extent feasible" and in a "cost-effective" way. In other words, the state is scrapping a legal requirement in favor of a goal with wiggle room."

"Hochul has spent months leading the effort to roll back the law, arguing that it would have hit New Yorkers in the pocketbook had changes not been made. Some Democrats in the Legislature fought back but were unable to hold off the measure in the budget, which is now nearly eight weeks late. The budget bill, which lawmakers began debating Tuesday afternoon and are expected to approve later in the day, would make a handful of significant changes that would make it easier for the state to meet its climate goals."

""It is really very unfortunate that today we are backsliding on some of that legislation that many people fought so hard to pass," Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Bronx Democrat, said on the Assembly floor Tuesday. "I think it's a mistake, and I think that people down the road will pay for this dearly.""

Read at Gothamist