Hochul Backs Off New York’s Aggressive Climate Timeline

ALBANY, New York — Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday she wants to rewrite New York’s nation-leading climate law, arguing the state needs more time to meet its aggressive goals amid rising energy prices and a legal challenge.

Speaking at POLITICO’s New York Agenda: Albany Summit, the governor said the state’s 2019 climate law — which mandates drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions — was written before the pandemic, inflation and supply chain challenges reshaped the economic landscape. Facing federal hostility to clean energy policies, the moderate Democrat said she had no choice but to ask for more time to reach the law’s targets.

"This is not the world I wanted. I would have loved to have been the governor that said, ‘Hey, I met all those goals. We did it, we did it, we did it,’” Hochul said during the event near the state Capitol in Albany. “We just need some breathing room.”

The governor nodded when asked if she wanted to extend the goals in the law. She said the state budget — due by April 1 — is the “best vehicle” for making changes, setting up a major battle with environmentalists and progressive lawmakers.

The step back is one of the clearest signs yet that Democrats are recalibrating their climate agenda as the party increasingly prioritizes affordability ahead of the midterms. Hochul once championed the initiative she’s now raising cost concerns about, embracing a cap-and-trade program to put a price on pollution in 2023. But she’s shied away from the potential up-front costs for gas and heating fuels, deferring action on it.

Democrats across the country are reckoning with the challenges of implementing ambitious climate policies as they deal with Trump’s antipathy for clean energy and rising utility bills. Hochul, who’s running for reelection this year to secure a second full term, has positioned herself as prioritizing affordability as she steers a pragmatic path forward. She’s embraced an “all of the above” approach on energy, approving a new gas pipeline and signaling openness to updating fossil fuel power plants.

“We didn't have the pandemic, inflation, lack of support from the federal government — which had been there before when this was all enacted — and tariffs,” Hochul said. “I'm trying to create an environment that will adhere to those goals … I just can't undo what has happened since those were put in place.”

Many Democratic lawmakers have expressed staunch opposition to making changes to the climate law in the budget.

"For us to attempt to change [the climate law] in the secrecy of the budget process does not do justice to the law,” Democratic state Sen. Pete Harckham, the chair of the Environmental Conservation Committee, said at the event earlier Wednesday. “If the governor wants to have that conversation, I may disagree with that, but that's her right. But then we should do that ... with the same kind of public input that the law was created."

Hochul said on Wednesday that a court case is forcing her hand and that she faces an “April deadline” to issue regulations for a cap-and-trade program. That in turn would impose major costs on residents.

“That's not hypothetical. That's me following the law,” Hochul said.

A judge ruled in October that the state was failing to follow the law, which explicitly required regulations to achieve the state’s goals. The judge set a February deadline for the state to act, but that timeframe was suspended pending the outcome of New York’s appeal.

Rachel Spector, a lawyer for the environmental groups who sued over the law, disputed the governor’s timeline. She said briefs are due next month, with oral arguments on the appeal likely at the end of April.

“There is no current enforceable deadline to issue regulations,” said Spector, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit that argued in court for the law to be implemented. “The court’s decision from October is still stayed pending full resolution of the appeal.”

The governor has been raising concerns about the up-front costs of the state’s climate law for years. She pushed to change the law in 2023 but was rebuffed by progressive Democratic lawmakers.

This year, Hochul has laid the groundwork to push again for changes. POLITICO first reported in January that Hochul’s administration was considering proposing changes to the law in the upcoming budget. The governor has raised the issue in closed-door conversations with top lawmakers as part of budget talks and her administration briefed key lawmakers in recent weeks, but she had not said explicitly she wanted changes this year until Wednesday’s summit.

Hochul pointed to a memo dated this year that lays out estimated costs if cap-and-trade were implemented without any cost guardrails to achieve the climate law’s 2030 goal of cutting emissions 40 percent from 1990 levels. It estimates additional costs of more than $4,000 annually per family in 2031.

“That'll go into effect under the judges rule if something is not done during this budget time,” Hochul said. “That's the reality I'm facing.”

Environmental advocates say no one is advocating for the program outlined in the state’s memo.

An analyst for NYSERDA, the state’s energy authority, said some of those numbers are based on work completed in 2024. The state had advanced a more modest program that wouldn’t achieve the state’s goals, which environmentalists say they were ready to support before Hochul pulled the plug on it last year.

The governor said she’d like to change the timelines in the law and address New York’s unique method for calculating greenhouse gas emissions, which prioritizes rapidly reducing the use of natural gas in the near term.

“We're judged by a different standard on our emissions,” Hochul said. “No matter what we do, we're always going to fail, because we jacked up the standards so high on ourselves.”

Hochul has previously declined to specify what changes she’ll seek, saying she won’t negotiate in public.

“I just have to be the person who is able to assess the landscape of where I am,” Hochul said. “I cannot deal with hypotheticals and aspirations when I have to govern a state where my people are suffering and I have to alleviate that pain.”

POLITICO’s Nick Reisman and Mona Zhang contributed to this report.