NY Must Include Cap and Invest with Climate and Community Protections in the NYS Budget
***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***: April 18, 2023
Contact: Marie Scarles, marie@nyrenews.org, (646) 389-8429
Web: @NYRenews | www.nyrenews.org
NY Must Include Cap and Invest with Climate and Community Protections in the NYS Budget
NEW YORK STATE – As negotiations over climate provisions in New York State budget continue, the NY Renews coalition released the following statement regarding a proposed Cap and Invest:
We urge the Governor and State Legislature to pass a Cap and Invest system in this year’s budget that includes key guardrails (as seen in the Senate’s one-house budget proposal) to protect disadvantaged communities and ensure emissions reductions over time and to link it to the Climate and Community Protection Fund—an equitable spending plan that directs funds raised from a polluter-pays model back to the people who make New York the vibrant state that it is. A just cap and invest system will send billions of dollars back to working people in the form of rebates, funds for community-led energy planning, worker transition support and job training, and the creation of thousands of good, green union jobs.
As Governor Hochul and the New York State Senate and Assembly are negotiating how New York will transition our economy to renewable energy sources and reduce economy-wide emissions by 40 percent in the next seven years and 85 percent by 2050, per NY’s Climate Act, justice must be at the fore.
The budget is where the rubber meets the road. We need this system—and we need it in this year’s budget.
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NY Renews is a coalition of more than 350 environmental justice, community, faith, labor, and multi-issue organizations fighting for just climate policy for New Yorkers. We are the force behind the nation's most aggressive climate law, the NY State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, enacted in 2019. The Climate, Jobs & Justice Package is the next step in our fight for climate justice in New York.