The big Albany news last week was the unveiling of Governor Hochul’s 2023-2024 Executive Budget proposal. Hammering out a final budget is rarely easy, but the prospects for the governor’s plans are boosted by the state’s $8.7 budget surplus.

That surplus is the result of higher-than-expected tax revenues and monies that have flowed from the federal government.  The governor also laid the groundwork for tougher days ahead, proposing that half of this year’s surplus be added to the state’s reserve funds to boost that total to more than $20 billion.

The governor’s plan anticipates a possible recession (mild) that would cut into future state revenues, with her office projecting budget gaps of about $22 billion over three years.

The proposed $227 billion proposal covers a lot of ground, calling for more money for existing programs, as well as offering new policy initiatives.  The governor wants record increases in education and Medicaid spending.  She also would set aside more than $1 billion to help New York City pay some costs of providing social services to new asylum seekers. Her budget offered details about her plan to build 800,000 units of affordable housing over the next decade. 

When it came to climate change, her budget paralleled the plan offered late last year by the state’s Climate Action Council.  The Council was created under state law to develop a plan for the state to meet its science-based greenhouse gas emission goals. 

Hochul is calling for a $5.5 billion investment to promote energy affordability, reduce emissions, and invest in clean air and water.  Her plan includes a “cap-and-invest” program that would establish a tightening cap on greenhouse gas emissions and invest the proceeds from polluter fees, with a focus on helping disadvantaged communities.  The “cap-and-invest” plan is modeled on the state’s current cap-and-trade program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cooperative effort among eight eastern states that caps and reduces carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.  The governor’s plan would extend that concept to large-scale greenhouse gas emitters and distributors of heating and transportation fuels, requiring they purchase pollution allowances for their activities.  Proceeds will support investments in climate mitigation, energy efficiency, clean transportation, and other projects, in addition to funding an annual Climate Action Rebate that will be distributed to all New Yorkers to help mitigate any potential consumer costs associated with the program.

Additionally, the governor’s budget proposes that all new building construction rely on non-fossil fuels for power.  Her plan is to require by 2025 that there be no on-site fossil fuel combustion for smaller buildings, and by 2028 for larger buildings.  In addition, the plan would bar the sale of fossil fuel heating equipment by 2030 for smaller buildings and by 2035 for larger buildings and related fossil fuel systems for all buildings.  In a surprise addition, the governor proposed legislation to allow the New York Power Authority to build renewable energy projects.

The governor’s new construction plan lags behind a law already in place in New York City – the skyscraper capital of the nation.  Why the governor delayed the implementation of the ban on gas and oil being used to power new buildings is unknown – a head scratcher given that new construction is considered the “low-hanging fruit” of moving off fossil fuels.

One of the biggest problems facing the state is the eroding finances of the downstate mass transit system, run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).  The federal government has provided $15 billion in aid to help the MTA recover from financial losses during the pandemic. Due to slower than anticipated gains in ridership, the MTA will spend that money fast.  With projected budget deficits of $600 million in 2023 and $1.2 billion in both 2024 and 2025, the state must provide additional funding so that the MTA can serve New Yorkers and help New York City fully bounce back.  

If approved, the governor’s plan would stop the MTA’s financial hemorrhaging, but not right the ship.  The ongoing financial problems will continue to fester and the threats of rising sea levels and more fierce storms will add to that price tag.  More will need to be done.

The governor advanced a plan that is likely to draw significant opposition.  The governor’s budget, while keeping the statewide cap of 460 charter schools in place, proposes to eliminate regional caps and make 85 more slots available for new charter schools anywhere in the state.  In addition to proposing an expansion of charter schools, the governor also advanced new public safety measures, which are also likely to generate legislative opposition.

The governor also embraced her predecessor’s plan to hike public college tuition, another initiative that will generate opposition.  It was the former governor’s higher education budgets that contributed to the growing financial problems within the State University and City University systems.  Governor Hochul also failed to propose any new help to independent colleges, which are also in bad financial shape.

In the area of health care, the governor proposed an increase in cigarette taxes and a ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products – to track the current prohibitions on flavored cigarettes and vapes.  Already the tobacco lobby and their front groups are mounting fierce opposition to these measures.  The governor’s plan falls short – she does not use the additional proceeds to fund the state’s anti-smoking efforts or boost efforts to curb the sale of illegal tobacco products.  That failure plays right into the hands of the tobacco lobby and their allies. 

More will be learned as the governor’s plans get legislative scrutiny, starting this week.  Under New York’s Constitution, the governor wins a lot more than she loses in Albany’s budget fights.  Too often, Albany forgets whose money it is they’re fighting over.  In order for the governor and state lawmakers to get it right, we have to stay engaged.  Stay tuned.

The United Nations stated that the world must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030 or civilization will be devastated. 2030 is only 7 years away.  The UN declaration is in line with New York’s goals and thus the state’s climate goals set the floor – not the ceiling – for action.   Missing those goals ignores climate science and puts New York on a trajectory that could lead to unnecessary deaths, human suffering, and staggering costs from flooding, storms, and heatwaves.

New York law requires that the state meet the goals set by the world’s experts.  The blueprint to meet these goals was laid out in last month’s Climate Action Council report. 

It’s not surprising that the report is now targeted by the fossil fuel industry and its allies – who have so far blocked meaningful climate action.  For decades, the oil industry knew of the dangers of burning fossil fuels – oil, coal, and gas – yet deliberately lied to the public.  They were so successful that now the world is facing an existential threat.

New York’s plan is now under attack by the same industry.  Their most recent effort to undermine the state’s climate plan is to divert our attention to the bogus charge that the government is going to take away gas stoves! 

Of course, no one will lose their gas stoves.  The state’s climate plan says that new buildings constructed later this decade will have to be powered by electricity, not fossil fuels, including gas.  It also states that New York will prohibit the sale of new, gas-powered appliances during the next decade, like it will do for the sale of new cars.  All of this makes sense, since New York, the nation, and the world, must kick our fossil fuel energy addiction.  And it makes sense since the top two sources of greenhouse gas emissions are buildings and transportation.

The plan also covers not-so-obvious issues, like the way the state should handle solid wastes – garbage.  According to the plan, solid waste generates about 12% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, including gases emitted by landfills, through the burning of waste, and from wastewater treatment.  Most of these emissions represent the long-term decay of organic materials buried in landfills, which will continue to emit methane at a significant rate for more than 30 years.  This is serious because methane is 84 times more damaging as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The state’s climate plan recommends that in order “To reduce emissions to achieve the required 2030 GHG emission reductions, significant increased diversion from landfills as well as emissions monitoring and leak reduction will be needed.  A circular economy approach to materials management is understood and employed.” 

The plan calls for the enactment of legislation to curb the generation of waste by reducing and recycling the waste generated by New Yorkers.  Specifically, the plan calls for expanding the state’s bottle deposit law to additional beverage containers. 

That call has broad-based public support.  In a poll released last week, 71 percent of New Yorkers support expanding the state’s bottle deposit program to include all types of beverage containers, with just 23 percent opposed.  The release of the poll amplified a call from 150 community, civic, and environmental organizations to Governor Hochul to modernize the state’s bottle deposit law as part of her upcoming Executive Budget.

The poll, conducted by Siena Research Institute, found that New Yorkers support the program as a whole.  A majority of respondents stated that the Bottle Bill had reduced litter in the state.  Additionally, the poll found that the majority of New Yorkers support raising the bottle deposit placed on beverage containers from a nickel to a dime.  The nickel deposit has been in place for 40 years.

The state’s Bottle Law has been the most successful litter reduction and recycling program in New York history.  When the law kicked in 40 years ago in 1983, beverage containers were found everywhere, now the overwhelming majority of such containers are redeemed under the program.  But many beverages – most notably non-carbonated sports drinks – didn’t exist four decades ago and are not covered by the law today.  And the nickel deposit was put in place 40 years ago – that 1983 nickel when adjusted for inflation is worth 15 cents today.

There is a lot to be done to overhaul our economy and lifestyle in order to avert the looming catastrophic consequences of global warming.  Ignoring efforts by the fossil fuel industry and their allies to undermine changes, and insisting on science-based solutions, are the only ways society can forestall the effects of a rapidly heating planet.

In 20 years when we are talking to a new generation about what we did to attack the problem of climate change, what will we say?  That we protected gas stoves or took aggressive, science-based steps to slash greenhouse gas emissions?  How we act today will determine the answer to that question.

According to the Oxford dictionary, the word propaganda means: “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.”  The use of propaganda was on display last week at a state Senate hearing on New York’s climate plan.

The state’s Climate Plan was developed over the past two years under a 2019 law that mandates the state meet certain climate goals, eventually leading to virtually no greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050.  That overall goal is consistent with one set by the world’s experts, who have warned that unless the world kicks the fossil fuel habit by then runaway global warming will devastate the planet. 

New York’s 2019 law ceded to a Climate Action Council the power to develop the blueprint that the state should follow in order to meet its aggressive, science-based climate goals. 

There were legitimate issues being raised by lawmakers and groups concerned about the ability of the state to implement the blueprint.  But there was also the drumbeat of propaganda, one that bears the fingerprints of the behind-the-scenes work of the fossil fuel industry: “They are coming for your gas stoves!”

The Climate Plan says that in order to meet the requirements of New York’s climate law, the state must stop adding new fossil fuel infrastructure.  Why build new oil and gas pipelines that take decades to pay off if the state has to stop burning those fuels?  Thus, the Climate Plan recommends requiring that new building construction rely on electricity for heating and cooking, not fossil fuels.  In addition, the Climate Plan says that in the future, appliances that run on gas should not be sold. 

The reality is that if you have, say, a gas stove now and you rely on an existing gas pipeline to power it, nothing changes – certainly not right away.  After all, how often do you buy a new stove?  No one is proposing that New Yorkers have to drag their gas stoves out to the garbage.

So who’s behind the effort to rile people up?  A recent New York Times investigation reports that the fossil fuel industry is bankrolling a nationwide effort to pull the plug on the growing effort to reduce carbon emissions and switch to electricity to power society.  The article specifically referenced the campaign in New York State.  According to the Times, the propane gas lobby “committed nearly $900,000 to a New York propane industry group to address the ‘massive challenge from well-funded efforts to electrify the entire state.’”

Their handiwork was apparent during the Senate hearing.  Opponents of the Climate Plan argued that while they supported the climate law, they were concerned that the Plan reduced the use of fossil fuels.  An obvious inconsistency.

The drumbeat of “they’re coming for your gas stoves” was heard again and again and fit in a social media campaign that followed. 

There’s no sugar-coating it: Even under the best of circumstances, the climate costs will be staggering, the planet will continue to heat up, and there will be terrible suffering among all living things. 

And the worst part is that, had the world acted sooner, we could have avoided the tremendous loss of treasure and curbed human suffering.  But we didn’t.  The delay is due to the oil companies and their allies who skillfully lied to the public and successfully deceived us about the real threats.  They attacked policies that could have averted the situation we’re in today – and will be in tomorrow and for years to come.  And they’re still doing it!

The costs to NY will be unprecedented – protecting roadways, mass transit systems, and shorelines from rising sea levels and more intense storms will cost New York tens of billions of dollars.

Who will pick up this huge tab?  Right now, you and I.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Instead, take a portion of Big Oil’s profits and direct it to the massive infrastructure projects that the state must undertake.  And do it in a way that ensures that those assessments are not passed on to the public.

Now is the time to act.  Not some other year.  Now.  Now is the time to make the oil companies, who are at the root of this problem, accountable.

After a brutal snowstorm in Western New York, the state of California has been inundated with record rainfall.  Of course, big rainstorms and deadly snowstorms are not new, but the frequency and intensity are what climate scientists have been predicting. 

Add these storms to the growing evidence of what climate scientists have been warning:  A rapidly heating planet will destabilize the world’s weather leading to more intense and more frequent storms.  Coupled with warming oceans and rising sea levels, civilization as we know it will have to adapt, and adapt fast, in order to deal with the problems resulting from climate change.

The world needs to aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions – from the burning of oil, coal, and gas – and it will need to develop new forms of energy to power our civilization.  But the costs to the world’s infrastructure in order to adapt roads, bridges, and coastal cities, to the threats posed by intensifying storms and rising sea levels will be staggering. 

Here in New York, one think tank estimated that the climate costs to New York will top $55 billion this decade.  A recent report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that it will take $52 billion to protect New York Harbor alone.

Even if the world succeeds in reducing greenhouse gases to zero by the middle of this Century, global warming will continue, so the costs of resiliency will continue to mount.

There is an old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Had the world reversed its headlong rush to the climate breaking point that we’re all at right now decades earlier, the costs would be far smaller.  But we didn’t, why?

A new report added new light to the answer to that question. 

A new study published last week in the journal Science found that in the 1970s the oil giant Exxon’s scientists made remarkably accurate projections of just how much burning fossil fuels would warm the planet. In fact, Exxon scientists warned the company’s executives of “potentially catastrophic” human-caused climate change.

Their projections were as accurate, or more so, as those of independent academic and government models.

Yet for years, Exxon undermined climate science, including their own findings, and campaigned against efforts to curb the burning of fossil fuels. Exxon – and other companies – funded public relations campaigns, hired well-connected lobbyists, and wrote campaign checks to allied lawmakers, all in a successful effort to block change.

So, that’s what happened.  Instead of taking the morally responsible path of alerting the world to the threat, Exxon and other companies kept their findings hidden and did all they could to stop necessary actions.  As a result, the last eight hot years have been the warmest on record.  That added heat has led to famines, stoked violent conflict, eroded glaciers, triggered massive floods and wildfires.  People are starving and dying, millions are on the move away from the heat and toward more temperate areas.

And it will get worse.

As mentioned earlier, there are immediate costs to adapt to the wilder weather and rising sea levels.  Those costs will be enormous but must be paid.  A failure to do so will lead to economic disasters as roadways get washed away and mass transit systems are flooded.

Who picks up the tab?

So far, we are.  Unless Governor Hochul and state lawmakers take action, these inevitable costs will be paid by New York taxpayers.  You’ve already put down a down payment with the passage last year of the Environmental Bond Act, which will provide $4.2 billion to address costs, some of which are related to the climate crisis.  But that’s just a “drop in the ocean” of current and looming costs.

There is one industry that should bear those costs and has the resources to do so – the oil industry.  It was the oil industry that conducted the science that identified the problem, it was they who blocked meaningful action, and it is they who are now reaping record profits.

Big Oil is responsible for the mess we’re in.  It is up to Governor Hochul and state lawmakers to teach the industry the lesson we’ve all learned – you made the mess, now you clean it up.

Each governor annually issues a “State of the State.”  This is required by the state Constitution, “The governor shall communicate by message to the legislature at every session the condition of the state, and recommend such matters to it as he or she shall judge expedient.”  From that one sentence, New York’s State of the State addresses have evolved into a long speech – usually around one hour – in which governors use the bully pulpit to largely congratulate themselves and lawmakers on the great achievements that been made.

More like the Presidential “State of the Union” address, modern era governors use the opportunity to capture the spotlight, promote their own agenda and to dominate media coverage, effectively to try to set the agenda for the upcoming session.

Expect no less from the current Governor Kathy Hochul.

For decades, the governor’s State of the State was delivered in the ornate state Assembly chambers.  That house seats the chamber’s 150 members, as compared to the smaller state Senate chamber, and so can hold more people in the audience.  That traditional practice has continued under Governor Hochul, who moved the address back to the Assembly chamber after a decade-long hiatus in which former Governor Cuomo used the more functional state Convention Center for his addresses, breaking with the tradition.

State of the State addresses are usually long on rhetoric and short on substance.  Details are left to the budget presentation released later in the month.

There can be no doubt that the governor wants to set the policy table with her own initiatives.  It is expected that she will urge action to expand affordable housing and to propose changes to the state’s public safety laws.  It is unlikely that she will dwell on the serious challenges facing the state.

The policy “elephant in the room” is the precarious nature of the state’s finances.  Going into the pandemic, New York’s finances were eroding, and eroding rapidly.  The state was sliding toward a crisis when the pandemic hit.  Had financial assistance not come from the federal government, New York would have been facing a very serious financial shortfall. 

The unprecedented federal assistance not only helped the state to weather the ongoing COVID pandemic, but to also shore up its finances.  That assistance is drying up and budget shortfalls loom.

Add to that the gigantic – and growing – deficits of the downstate Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), municipal governments, and colleges, and the state of the state looks grim.  Add to those problems the significant financial costs to address damages caused by rising sea levels and fiercer storms caused by global warming and the state financial outlook is dire.

Where will the money come from? 

Historically, the governor and lawmakers cut budget deals that “kick the can” down the road on the more difficult problems, add revenues from more or less regressive taxes and fees, and then hope for the best.  But the cratering finances of the MTA and the mushrooming costs resulting from the climate crisis will not allow fiscal sleight-of-hand to succeed.

A true report on the “condition of the state” could not possibly ignore the gathering financial storms.  But to recognize them would be delivering bad news, an option usually to be avoided in State of the State addresses.

Yet, the governor can’t look away from it.  The incredible damage and deaths from the recent snowstorm in Buffalo, the drowning deaths of New York City residents in basement apartments from Hurricane Ida, the flooding of subways tunnels, are all just an indication of worse events to come.

Saving lives and protecting infrastructure hinge on decisions made today, not sometime in the worsening future.  Climate change is not an environmental problem alone, it is a societal one, a threat that impacts the lives and the economic future of everyone.

It’s clear that a massive investment to “weatherize” the state’s infrastructure is necessary and will in fact happen, sooner or in a more expensive later.  But who should pay?

Let’s hope that Governor Hochul’s State of the State address tackles this critical issue.  A massive jobs program to protect and revitalize the state is critical to saving lives and treasure.  And making sure that the oil companies – those most responsible for the threats – are the ones picking up the tab.

New Yorkers will soon see whether this governor uses the bully pulpit to take on the incredible challenge.  Or will Albany kick the can?