Updates: New York (Almost) Has a Budget
With criminal justice and housing debates wrapping up after weeks of stalemate, climate issues are finally having their day in the negotiating room. Talks went on through the weekend on big-ticket items like building public renewables, banning gas in new buildings, and cap and invest — the latter of which has faced stiff resistance from the Assembly. But on Tuesday, sources told New York Focus that a cap-and-invest deal may be emerging after all.
The policy, Hochul’s flagship proposal to slash greenhouse gas emissions, would put a price on carbon, with potentially major implications for the state’s economy — starting with energy bills.
After Hochul proposed a bare-bones version of the plan in February — leaving the stickiest decisions up to her executive agencies — the Senate counter-offered a detailed version that would ban the trading of emissions allowances, limit exemptions for energy-intensive businesses, and steer revenues from the program into four spending areas, as demanded by the NY Renews coalition. The Assembly declined to include cap and invest in its budget proposal at all.