Will Hochul’s Political Concerns Put New York’s Climate Goals at Risk?
The New York Times
Gov. Kathy Hochul is contending with pressures from environmental advocates and President-elect Donald Trump as she charts a path forward.
In 2019, New York passed a sweeping law that promised to drastically reduce emissions and make New York an example for the nation.
But the measure also served another purpose: helping New York’s pugnacious governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, stick a thumb in the eye of President Donald J. Trump, whose administration was striving to dismantle environmental regulations and expand fossil fuel production.
“Trump ignores climate change because it is not politically convenient to acknowledge it,” Mr. Cuomo said at the signing of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
Five years later, the landscape has shifted: The state’s current governor, Kathy Hochul, is less eager to provoke Mr. Trump, who will return to the White House after growing his margin of victory nationwide — including in deep blue New York City.
And while New York once appeared on track to meet the first of its major climate goals — drawing 70 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030 — that now seems a distant possibility, after supply chain disruptions and rising inflation derailed several key offshore wind projects.
All of which leaves Ms. Hochul in a difficult position of delivering progress on environmental issues for New Yorkers, 89 percent of whom consider them somewhat or very important, without putting the state in the cross hairs of the notoriously retaliatory president-elect.
