When state lawmakers decided in 2019 to pass ambitious energy and emissions mandates for New York, they had nothing but the best intentions. All in all, the standards would require a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, a laudable goal.
But that all turned out to just an unachievable wish, as the objectives cannot be met and must be changed. Gov. Hochul recognizes that reality and so must the Legislature.
The years since the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act was approved and signed into law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo have not been kind, as was made painfully apparent last week as the state Energy Research and Development Authority released a memo noting steep energy cost increases for New Yorkers if the state does move to comply with the 2019 plan.
This came the day after state Budget Director Blake Washington spoke publicly about the possibility of delaying or renegotiating the standards, and Hochul has been trying to raise the issue with lawmakers. We hope legislators will be receptive to a reevaluation, which does not mean that they are abandoning the broader climate and energy objectives.
It can be simultaneously true that renewable energies are the future and should, eventually, come to fully replace the dirty energies that are both resource-limited and contributing to the existential threat of climate change; and that the specific targets set in 2019 are not feasibly achievable for a host of reasons that would have been difficult to foresee.
COVID-19 practically shut the country down, turning government attention to dealing with the extant emergency and delaying much else. Then, Vladimir Putin decided to launch a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, which has now dragged on for years as, in the interim, Donald Trump was reelected and immediately launched into trying to torpedo wind and solar projects out of purely ideological considerations. The tensions, and now war, with Iran has also disrupted energy predictability and costs.
Massive energy rate hikes are not merely an inconvenience. New Yorkers around the state are already being squeezed by Trump’s calamitous economic policies, spiraling housing costs, the price of child care and so on. Hochul has been admirably focused on addressing the latter issues, including with her welcome championing of a statewide free child care initiative, but it wouldn’t make much sense for her to drive down those costs only for them to skyrocket elsewhere.
The consequence of very high energy costs, particularly in high heat, high humidity summer months can even be fatal. Short of that, they can force families to make decisions like whether they’re going to pay for their electricity or their food.
Any renegotiation should not be a get-out-of-transition-free card. It’s important that the state keeps moving in the direction of renewable energy — which really is the direction of both self-reliance and far lower costs, down the line — and we need the governor’s leadership on that.
She should sit down with lawmakers and subject matter experts and devise some new deadlines that take into account the shocks that have taken place since but retain the overall objectives. What she shouldn’t do is try to water down the standards themselves, such as with an earlier effort to rejigger how the state measures methane emissions.
There’s a path forward here that gets us to a cleaner future with cheaper energy in the slightly longer run without leaving New Yorkers to struggle in the shorter one. We trust that the governor and the Legislature can get there.
