As long-time observers know, Albany has a budget “dance.” The first step is that the governor must introduce her executive budget by mid-January; she has until mid-February to make any changes. In late January, the Legislature gets to “lead,” as it holds hearings to gather additional information on the governor’s budget plans from her agencies and the public.
Once the hearings are done, and they finished last week, each House develops its own budget plans based on the governor’s proposal and the feedback from the hearings. New York law requires that both the Senate and Assembly have public meetings to discuss their budget differences and then negotiations with the governor take place to finalize differences. The final product is due on March 31st.
In New York the governor is in the driver’s seat when it comes to cobbling together a budget; the Legislature is a junior partner. In recent years, Governor Hochul has used her power to deliberately make budgets late in order to get concessions on other – usually non-budget – policies that she is advancing. The budget negotiations are held in secret.
Last week the governor added a new twist: On Thursday, her Administration unveiled a vague proposal to change New York’s seven-year-old Climate Law. The governor has expressed her desire to modify the law on numerous occasions, but no proposal was contained in her budget, nor her budget amendments, and was announced in informal verbal statements released as the budget hearings were wrapping up. Thus, there was no meaningful way for her proposal to face public scrutiny.
The Administration’s proposal was thrown into the budget “dance” to maximize the secrecy of what she intends. It must be underscored that the governor’s office has not actually proposed anything concrete, other than some statements that were later backed up by a three-page memo arguing that compliance with the Climate Law would cost New Yorkers thousands of dollars in additional energy costs.
Never mind that the governor has been proposing budgets for five years and in this year’s budget there was no plan to make changes. Never mind that her Administration has not released a deeper analysis of the sources for the estimates, methods or calculations in the three-page memo. Never mind that, if the Administration has its way, there will be no public scrutiny of the plan until after its possible inclusion as part of a secret budget negotiation.
So, what does New York’s Climate Law do?
It’s based on the planet’s worsening climate. The world’s climate scientists have agreed that “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming” and that “limiting human-caused global warming requires net zero CO2 emissions.”
The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (“Climate Law”) was approved seven years ago and was designed to set the state on a path toward “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of this Century. The “net zero” goal is consistent with the standard set by the world’s climate scientists – who have warned that in order to avoid the worst consequences of global heating, all nations need to adhere to the net zero goal.
New York’s Climate Law set interim goals designed to guide policymakers as benchmark steps to meet the targets advised by the world’s climate experts. Those interim goals commit the state to generate 70 percent of its electricity from renewable power sources and achieve a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – just four years from now.
After the Climate Law was passed in 2019, the state convened a panel of “stakeholders” to arrange an extended public process. Once that process was completed, a “blueprint” of how to proceed was released in 2022. Yet, once the fanfare of signing the bill passed and the rollout of the blueprint was over, too little was done to meet the challenges set in the Climate Law.
New York’s goals are attainable. For example, Germany, with its cloudy days and cool climate expects to generate nearly 15% of its electricity by solar. While New York State generates a paltry 5%. In addition, the European Union has announced it expects to meet its 2030 targets of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% compared to 1990 levels and achieving at least 42.5% renewable energy.
What New York does matters. While the state is a small portion of the world’s population, if it were a nation, it would have the eighth biggest economy in the world. What New York does can have huge impacts on the world’s climate approach.
Yet, instead of proposing to galvanize the state’s so-far-lethargic effort to meet the science-based goals of the Climate Law, apparently the governor wants to back off. What should be done?
The Legislature should firmly reject the governor’s move. The governor’s apparent plan is too consequential to get jammed into secret budget negotiations. If the governor wants to propose changes, do it in the light of day outside of the budget. New Yorkers have a right to know.