Kathy Hochul Calls for ‘Cap and Invest’ to Slash Emissions
By Colin Kinniburgh, NY Focus
GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL on Tuesday announced a plan to put an economy-wide price on carbon, which, if adopted, could mark one of the most sweeping plans in the country to ditch fossil fuels.
The plan, known as “cap and invest,” would require businesses to buy allowances to pollute, gradually reducing the number of allowances — the cap — until emissions are brought down by at least 85 percent, in line with New York’s climate law. To get there, the state would invest revenue from the allowance sales in efforts to cut pollution, like installing electric vehicle chargers, weatherizing buildings, and replacing fossil fuel appliances with electric ones.
Hochul’s proposal first emerged from the state’s Climate Action Council, which formally recommended cap and invest in December as part of its roadmap to meet the climate law.
New York wouldn’t be the first state to adopt such an approach: California has had a cap-and-trade program since 2013, and Oregon and Washington adopted their own versions in 2020 and 2021, respectively. But, if the final plan meets the standards the climate council proposed, it could be the most rigorous. And given the scale of New York’s economy — the third-largest in the country after California and Texas — it could set an important national precedent.
“We’re pursuing a nation-leading cap-and-invest program to cap greenhouse emissions, invest in the clean energy economy, and prioritize the health and economic well-being of our families,” Hochul said in her State of the State address.