September 30, 2021
Governor Hochul Prioritizes Climate Action in Her First Month
by Roger Downs, Conservation Director
2021 promised to be an important policy year for NY's Environment. With progressive supermajorities in both legislative houses, the unfolding of NY’s nation leading climate law, and the deepening environmental crisis, the potential for further reform seemed ripe, if not imperative.
But for the first half of the year, Andrew Cuomo’s descent into a quagmire of scandals paralyzed New York’s political landscape. Lawmakers were reduced to negotiating with a governor largely in hiding as charges of sexual harassment and misconduct intensified. Enacting any new policy suffered as a result. His resignation in August, precipitated by a scathing report from Attorney general Latisha James, saw the swift transfer of power to Kathy Hochul - a lieutenant governor largely unknown to the general public.
Will this abrupt transition continue to stall much needed environmental action, or will the end of Cuomo’s reign and controlling nature lead to better things for the climate movement? At this early stage, it appears there is some hope for the latter.
Hochul is New York’s first woman Governor, the first Western New Yorker to hold the office in more than a hundred years, and the first since FDR not to hail from NYC, its suburbs or their supporting political machines. Andrew Cuomo she is not. While her record as a member of congress reflects centrist policies and campaign ties with fossil fuel interests and their allied unions, her past platforms appear to be more a product of survival in a conservative district than her personal ideology. As lieutenant governor, Hochul was tasked with typical ambassadorial duties and took pride in visiting all 62 counties of New York every year. Many of these trips were in the company of DEC Commissioner Seggos, and one gets the sense that with every park ribbon cutting, clean up announcement and tree planting - a deeper connection with New York’s environment was forged.
Kathy Hochul’s quiet gubernatorial inauguration on September 24, was ushered in by the destruction of Hurricane Henri, just a week after hurricane Ida bombarded New York City, Long Island and the Hudson valley, drowning neighborhoods, transit lines and wreaking havoc on infrastructure. These once-in-a-thousand-year weather events that are now happening just years apart, are clearly linked to Climate Change. Hochul did not hesitate to draw the connection at press events as she scrambled to secure state and federal funding for the clean up and reclamation of flood damaged areas. As lieutenant governor, Hochul played a significant role in shaping and campaigning for the “Restore Mother Nature Bond Act” a $3 Billion dollar program that will fund the restoration of wetlands and climate resilience programs across the state. It appears her work was prescient. If Hochul is fortunate enough to be the Democratic nominee for Governor in 2022 she will be campaigning alongside the bond act that will also go before the voters that November. To kick off climate week Governor Hochul reinvigorated this connection by declaring her intention to increase the bond act to $4 billion and to continue to make the issue of climate resilience a priority - which includes finally bringing wetlands regulatory reform to New York after an unresolved, 20 year fight over who has jurisdiction to protect New York’s most important aquatic habitats. Hochul also said the state would spend another $600 million on water and drainage infrastructure improvements after the storm.
While Andrew Cuomo can claim an important environmental legacy in his 10 years that includes the fracking ban, a nation leading climate law, and a myriad of bans on toxic products, including the plastic bag and styrofoam bans and the Child Safe Products Act- his leadership style often got in the way of the steady flow of so many more reforms, as every agency action had to be approved by his office, creating policy log jams and an inconsistent implementation of rules.
The hope is that Hochul will lead with confidence in her own agency staff and allow career experts at DEC, NYSERDA and the DOH to execute policy decisions with some autonomy and consistency. It appears, with her expressed admiration of DEC commissioner Basil Seggos, and her intention of keeping him in the new administration , that is her inclination. In her first two weeks, major environmental announcements were made on issues that for months felt like they were stuck in bureaucratic purgatory under Cuomo.
In early September, Hochul signed legislation that would end the sale of internal combustion vehicles in New York by 2035 and at the same time began a regulatory process to adopt the Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) rule, which follows California’s lead in phasing out diesel pollution in favor of zero emissions vehicles. She also declared that she would increase New York’s Solar installation goal from 6 gigawatts to 10 gigawatts by 2030, including $36 million to establish “clean energy hubs” in dozens of environmental justice neighborhoods. Hochul also announced the implementation of the largest pollution study ever undertaken in the United States, to monitor air quality in disadvantaged communities across NY and use the data collected to develop strategies to reduce pollution in these communities, including the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. With that she also included $59 million for the Clean Green Schools Initiative, a program to boost indoor air quality and lower carbon emissions for more than 500 public & private Pre-K-12 schools in those same communities.
Hochul followed with an announcement that she will be lifting the hiring freeze of state workers, sending a hopeful signal that the decimated DEC workforce can see the first major reinforcements in more than a decade during which time staffing for the agency was cut by a third.
The Hochul administration also untied the DEC’s hands in the regulation of energy intensive bitcoin mining, by announcing that they may not renew a Title V air permit for the Greenidge power plant and its associated cryptocurrency facility, on the grounds that this energy ravenous industry does not comply with NY’s climate laws. The Sierra Club is already engaged in litigation against the plant, and welcomes the opportunity to comment on a permit that was granted under Cuomo and should be rescinded.
This Title V air permit challenge is part of a larger fight to have agency actions comply with the new climate law. While regulations for the administration of the law will not be finalized until 2024, New York State is still struggling with a barrage of applications to build or renew permits for fracked gas power plants, pipelines, compressor stations, bitcoin mines and hazardous waste incinerators. The pressure will be on Hochul to bring consistency in all agency actions in keeping with the goals of the climate law. As DEC commissioner Seggos recently commented: “Anything that comes in front of us that is demanding a huge draw on the state’s clean energy resources, or is going to pollute, we have laws designed to protect us right now, because of the state’s climate work.”
There is some irony that with all this positive movement of what was once entrenched Hochul also greenlighted a massive Canadian hydroelectric transmission project that the Sierra Club has opposed, in all its iterations, for decades. The Champlain-Hudson Power Express (CHPE) line was awarded under Tier 4 of NY’s Clean Energy Standard, bringing power from Canadian company HydroQuébec to NYC - but also opposition from First Nations, potentially irreparable harm to our Hudson River , and possibly no reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It could be argued that this decision was a hold over from the Cuomo administration that had too much inertia to deny, but it is still a bitter pill to swallow - especially in the context of all this new “hope”.
A second contract was also awarded to the New York Power Authority’s Clean Path NY transmission line which will maximize in-state renewable generation from upstate to the city, without unacceptable environmental and human rights issues. We hope that the difference between the two projects will be instructive moving forward.
Ultimately, it is too early to know what impact Governor Hochul will have upon New York’s environment compared with her predecessor. But there is hope that her positive actions in the opening weeks of her term will grow into an important shift in New York, not only for the kind of policies we need to solve the climate crisis, but the transparency and dignity New York should demand of its leaders.