Senator Harckham proposes fund to ensure oversight of state's climate revenue
By Kate Lisa, Spectrum News 1
The chair of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee is pushing for a special fund in the next state budget to ensure revenue the state collects to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions is used for projects to satisfy the Climate Act.
The 2019 Climate Act requires the state to drastically reduce its carbon footprint over the next several years. A Cap-and-Invest program in Gov. Kathy Hochul's budget would help the state reach those benchmarks — allowing the state Department of Environmental Conservation and state Energy Research and Development Authority to cap New York's annual permitted greenhouse gas emissions, reducing it each year, and force businesses that want to contribute to the emissions to buy credits from the state.