Climate Budget Flop

“It was bad for climate,” Sen. Liz Krueger, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said. “We have more work to do on climate.” The budget included no significant measures to address planet-warming emissions from buildings or transportation, the biggest sources of pollution in New York. Instead, there was a sales tax exemption for residential energy storage systems, a few million dollars to plant trees and marginal changes to speed up construction of transmission lines.
But the budget came and went without any measures to address New York’s likely inability to meet its climate goal of reaching 70 percent renewable electric energy by 2030, to the dismay of environmental groups. New York’s climate scoping plan, approved by Hochul officials and legislative appointees at the end of 2022, calls for dozens of legislative actions to speed the transition to a net zero-emission economy by 2050, as required by the state’s landmark climate law.
None were addressed in this year’s budget. “Our members are shockingly disappointed,” said Stephan Edel, coalition coordinator for the influential environmental, labor and environmental justice coalition NY Renews. “Last year we saw compromises but real progress and this year we got essentially nothing,”

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