(The Center Square) — A group of New York Democrats is siding with environmentalists in a court fight with Gov. Kathy Hochul over costly provisions of a new climate change law, drawing criticism from business groups who say it will saddle energy consumers with higher costs.
In a new filing in the state Supreme Court, 17 Democratic senators and assembly members ask justices to order the state Department of Environmental Conservation to issue draft regulations to implement the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a 2019 that requires New York to take aggressive steps to reduce its excess greenhouse gas emissions.
The lawmakers who signed onto the amicus brief included Bronx Democrats and state Sens. Nathalia Fernandez and state Gustavo Rivera, along with Queens Assembly members Jessica González-Rojas and Diana Moreno, among others.
A coalition of green groups filed a lawsuit last year, accusing the Hochul administration of dragging its heels on implementing the five-year-old law. They argued in court filings that New York is suffering from rising temperatures, more intense air pollution, health impacts, and more frequent and more severe extreme weather events such as storms, flooding, heat waves and wildfires.
The lawmakers wrote in the court filing that the Legislature’s Democratic majority approved the climate change law “with full acknowledgment that implementation costs remained uncertain and could be in the billions,” but said the state’s increased cost estimates for the plan “do not excuse DEC’s non-compliance.”
“The Legislature knowingly enacted a statute that would require large-scale economic transformation, including substantial and uncertain costs, and delegated to DEC the task of implementing that transformation,” the Democrats wrote in the court filing. “Critically, cost was not a condition of DEC’s mandate to adopt regulations, and increased cost estimates therefore do not excuse DEC’s non-compliance.”
But the move by Democratic lawmakers to intervene in the legal fight over the climate change law drew strong criticism from business groups, who say the move will saddle energy consumers with higher costs.
“This amicus brief is completely out of touch — and frankly, unconscionable,” Justin Wilcox, executive director of Upstate United, said in a statement. “At a time when New Yorkers are already struggling with rising costs, these lawmakers are going out of their way to advocate in court for a position that would effectively force many struggling families to shoulder steep new energy and transportation expenses just to heat their homes and commute to work.”
Wilcox said the most “troubling” aspect of the court filing is that it “makes clear that these lawmakers understood the cost of the CLCPA when they passed it, and they understand the costs their legal position would impose — and are willing to move forward anyway.”
“What they treat as an academic debate has real-world implications — it is a direct hit to working families, seniors on fixed incomes, and local businesses,” he said.
The CLCPA, signed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in 2019, requires New York to reduce its excess greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. It includes requirements for homeowners and businesses to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, which critics say would impose heavy burdens on New York households, especially those unable to afford lower-emissions technologies.
Hochul, a Democrat who is seeking another four years in office, is pushing to delay provisions of the climate change law, warning that its aggressive goals could cost the average New Yorker up to $3,500 per year. She says the law’s emissions reduction mandates also are “unrealistic” given the Trump administration’s efforts to end support for offshore wind and other clean energy projects.
New York already has some of the highest energy costs in the nation, which consumer advocates say has made it harder for people to keep their homes heated, and the lights turned on. A poll released Wednesday by The Business Council of New York State found a majority of New York voters say their electricity bills are unreasonable — with nearly 70% worried that clean energy mandates will drive those costs even higher.
