On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul finally started tiptoeing toward reality on New York\u2019s climate law.<\/p>\n
In a lengthy opinion column, she laid out her proposal to postpone by a decade the state\u2019s stringent greenhouse-gas emissions rules, set by law to hit in 2030 \u2014 pointing fingers at everything from COVID-19 to upstate NIMBYism to President Donald Trump to justify waving the white flag. \u00a0<\/p>\n
But Albany legislators should never have imposed these draconian CO\u2082 emissions<\/a> targets to begin with.<\/p>\n Even in 2019, when the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act\u00a0was passed, New York had among the lowest carbon emissions per capita of any state in the US, with 6% of the nation\u2019s population but\u00a0only 1% of its CO\u2082.<\/p>\n Forcing this law on New Yorkers is like imposing calorie restrictions on anorexics to solve America\u2019s obesity problem.<\/p>\n And make no mistake, the Climate Act imposes severe restrictions in seeking a 40% reduction in gas emissions by 2030.<\/p>\n A New York State Energy Research and Development memo leaked this month predicted its mandates<\/a> would force gas prices up by $2.26 per gallon and make upstate households spend upwards of $4,000 a year more for heating \u2014 just the tip of the iceberg of the costs New Yorkers would have to bear.<\/p>\n All of that should have been discussed and calculated back in 2019.<\/p>\n But the actual Climate Act bill barely mentioned the burdens it would impose \u00a0\u2014 including practical considerations, like whether the technology existed to power all of New York without fossil fuels, as the law mandates must occur by 2040.<\/p>\n The \u201cbill jacket\u201d introduction was full of buzzwords about the Paris Agreement, the United Nations and global weather.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the\u00a0bill\u00a0itself essentially admitted that legislators had no idea how much their decrees would cost.<\/p>\n Yet Albany\u2019s \u201cvote first, ask questions later\u201d mentality prevailed.<\/p>\n Now, seven years later, Hochul is pleading with those legislators for an election-year reprieve \u2014 kicking the climate can a decade down the road.<\/p>\n The governor is right to note that even with her proposed timeline changes, New York would still have one of the most ambitious climate plans in the country.<\/p>\n Rethinking the Climate Act, she suggests, is not a move against the planet, but a reasonable exercise in light of new data.<\/p>\n In truth, though, while New York has spent $88.7 billion in the last five years to comply with the Climate Act\u2019s mandates, the outlay has barely moved the needle.<\/p>\n Since 2019, New York\u2019s CO\u2082 emissions from electricity generation have\u00a0risen, not fallen.<\/p>\n Despite the renewable-energy hype, wind and solar amount to around 5% of the Empire State\u2019s electricity production: After seven years of the Climate Act, New York still runs on fossil fuels.<\/p>\n And one thing the Climate Act did achieve was to\u00a0deny permits\u00a0for newer, cleaner natural-gas power plants.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n That means New York\u2019s electricity is being generated with increasingly outdated technology and equipment, risking failure and blackouts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even environmentalists should be concerned about the impacts.<\/p>\n Instead, the activists will spin the narrative that New Yorkers are absolutely on board with their aggressive climate agenda \u2014 and $6 gas.<\/p>\n But residents actually favor a reasonable climate policy, not a radical one.<\/p>\n A Siena Research poll last year\u00a0found that 61% of us \u2014 including 54% of Democrats \u2014agree that \u201cKeeping energy costs affordable in New York is more important right now than reducing greenhouse gas emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n An earlier Empire Center\u00a0poll showed that 60% of New\u00a0Yorkers want the state to find ways to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions without increasing the price of energy.<\/p>\n So give Hochul some credit for taking a small step in the right direction.<\/p>\n