Climate pivot no longer central to state budget talks, says Hochul administration
By Susan Arbetter, Spectrum News 1
In Albany, where lawmaking can move at the speed of smell, the Hochul administration’s retreat on a new climate policy was breathtaking.
On Monday, DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos and New York State Energy and Research Development Authority President and CEO Doreen Harris told Capital Tonight they were backing a bill sponsored by the Legislature’s Energy Committee chairs to, in effect, weaken the state’s climate laws. The purpose? To prevent New Yorkers from paying “potentially extraordinary costs."
While environmentalists were outraged, members of the Climate Action Council, including Raya Salter, executive director of the Energy Justice Law & Policy Center, felt like the rug was pulled out from under them.
“To make this kind of change so late in the game would have effectively ripped up the plan that we just approved a mere three months ago,” Salter said.