NY Renews Statement on Governor Hochul’s State of the State Address
***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***: January 9, 2024
Contact: Marie Scarles, marie@nyrenews.org, (646) 389-8429
Web: @NYRenews | www.nyrenews.org
In response to Governor Hochul’s 2024-2025 State of the State address, NY Renews, the state’s largest climate and environmental justice coalition, issued the following statement:
We applaud Governor Hochul for including parts of the NY HEAT Act in the State of the State policy agenda, ending the regressive policy where New Yorkers pay hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the state’s fracked gas pipelines. It’s time New York starts shifting our state’s energy infrastructure away from fossil fuels and toward the electric and thermal energy networks that we’ll need to power our homes, workplaces, and public buildings in the future. But we’ll need much more to protect the safety and survival of our families, communities, and environment for generations to come.
As the climate crisis intensifies, Governor Hochul and the state legislature must rapidly and equitably scale up climate spending in New York. Funding from the state’s Environmental Bond Act for home resiliency projects is good, but not enough. This year, we need the People’s Climate Justice Budget—a $1 billion investment to the newly created Climate Action Fund—to start launching critical climate and environmental justice programs. One billion is a downpayment on the more than $10 billion annually New York estimates we’ll need to clean up our air, protect our communities from extreme weather, and create the robust, unionized renewable energy workforce of the future.
We must not backtrack from our ambitious mandates and set weak standards. Any transportation standards must not include so-called “low carbon fuels.” While we support the Governor’s instincts to take a hard look at transportation emissions, New York must not fall victim to the fossil fuel industry’s false solutions.
The path is clear. Without a significant increase in funding, the Governor’s climate proposals will leave average New Yorkers high, dry, and out in the extreme weather. If she wants to help our state survive the worst impacts of the climate crisis, she needs to invest in climate solutions, like the Climate, Jobs, & Justice Package. Passing the full NY HEAT Act will help lower household energy bills; the Climate Change Superfund Act will make the state’s polluting fossil fuel corporations pay, raising $3 billion a year for community resiliency programs; and the Just Energy Transition Act will help New York transition the state’s fossil fuel facilities to renewable energy.
Now, the state’s climate future is in the hands of the legislature. We call on the Assembly and Senate to include these initiatives in their one-house budgets and push for their passage this session.
Quotes:
Shiv Soin, NY Renews Steering Committee member and Co-Executive Director of TREEage said, “Despite compounding and worsening climate events impacting the livelihoods of everyday New Yorkers, Governor Hochul’s State of the State address once again fails to meet the moment. We’re encouraged to see investments in green schools and the elimination of the 100-foot rule as priorities, but it remains to be seen what funding the Governor will allocate to make these goals a reality. For years, we have seen proposals inadequately funded or outright ignored––enough is enough. We’re committed to seeing deeper investments in public schools across the state, and the entirety of the Climate, Jobs, and Justice Package passed this legislative session, including the NY HEAT ACT and the People’s Climate Budget.”
Daniel Atonna, NY Renews Steering Committee member and Political Coordinator at For the Many said, “The climate crisis is here. New York can’t afford to backtrack on our renewable goals. Governor Hochul and the state legislature must take bold action in this year’s budget by passing the full Climate, Jobs, and Justice Package. The People’s Climate Justice Budget and bills like the NY HEAT Act will both help save the planet and save people money.”
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NY Renews is a coalition of nearly 400 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.