POLITICO New York PlaybookAlbany ProCity Hall Morning NewsletterNew York Education ProNew York Energy ProNew York Health Care ProNew York Real Estate ProCity Council Agenda + Bill TrackerAfternoon Albany Pro
New York State Bill TrackerCity Council Stated Meeting TrackerNew York State Building Permit Tracker
Document Drawer
The new goals — and the Green New Deal branding — could bolster Cuomo's reputation as a national leader on climate and place New York ahead of California's 2045 goal to eliminate emissions from electricity. | Getty Images
Cuomo's 'Green New Deal' kicks off debate about scope and cost
By MARIE J. FRENCH
ALBANY — Climate legislation rolled out by Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week echoes a package long sought by environmentalists, but industry groups are raising concerns about the costs associated with going carbon free by 2040.
Meanwhile, some environmentalists say the new push does not go far enough.
Cuomo's budget unveiled last Tuesday includes what he dubbed a "Green New Deal" — a legislative mandate for the electric sector to achieve 100 percent carbon free resources by 2040 and the creation of a Cuomo-controlled council to evaluate policies to eliminate emissions across the entire state economy.
While Cuomo's energy policy has prioritized emissions reductions in the past, the new targets indicate what observers call an "evolution" for the pragmatic governor and one reflecting a new political reality. The left in New York has been emboldened by a common enemy in President Donald Trump, the upset election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress and Democratic control of the state Legislature.
The new goals — and the Green New Deal branding — could bolster Cuomo's reputation as a national leader on climate and place New York ahead of California's 2045 goal to eliminate emissions from electricity. Cuomo says the new "deal" is simply the next step in an already robust green agenda.
"This is not new for us," he said on WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show" on Thursday. "We've been pursuing it for a number of years. Green New Deal to us means, No. 1, the most aggressive standards when it comes to climate change." (Hawaii has a more aggressive green goal of getting to a fully carbon neutral economy by 2045.)
Advocates praised Cuomo for the new commitments, but some who have been pushing for stronger targets and criticizing Cuomo's pace aren't completely satisfied.
"It was a serious effort to develop a national, forward, cutting-edge climate policy," said Mark Dunlea, a co-founder of the state's Green Party. "Do we think it goes far enough and fast enough? No, but I think he deserves credit."
Legislative shift
Cuomo's proposal for climate legislation represents an "evolution" for the governor, said Peter Iwanowicz, the head of Environmental Advocates of New York. It's also an acknowledgment that the Legislature is likely to ramp up its push for emissions reductions and the governor can either be seen as following their lead or leading the charge himself.
Cuomo has largely gone it alone on energy policy during his first two terms, exercising the executive's broad authority over the state's utilities and the financial clout of the New York Power Authority, among other agencies, to set greener standards.
"It bodes really well for us having broad agreement on the need to have a framework on climate that's going to get us to where we want to be down the road to a greener economy," said Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach), the chairman of the Environmental Conservation Committee. Kaminsky plans to reintroduce a measure this session known as the Climate and Community Protection Act, or CCPA.
Kaminsky still plans to hold hearings on that measure, and the issue of climate legislation more broadly, in February.
The CCPA is backed by a broad coalition of groups known as NY Renews, which includes environmental lobbying groups, grassroots climate activist organizations and front-line community organizers. It has passed the Assembly three times and Speaker Carl Heastie has indicated it will be brought to the floor again.
Cuomo's budget wording for the "Climate Leadership Act" mirrors the bill in several ways but differs significantly in terms of timelines, mandating funds for environmental justice communities and the specific composition of the Climate Action Council, tasked with evaluating policies to achieve the goals.
Cuomo has already set, by executive fiat, a goal to reduce emissions from energy sectors — including transportation, electric generation, buildings and industry — 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.
The CCPA goes beyond that and would enshrine a concrete 2050 zero-emissions goal across the economy into state law. Cuomo's proposal does set the electric sector goal of carbon free by 2040 in law, but does not lay out a timeline for eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions.
Instead, the Climate Action Council — a body created under both proposals — would examine the issue and report on the feasibility of when that could be achieved and policies to get there. The council would also focus on Cuomo's existing 2050 and 2030 milestones.
That's unlikely to satisfy some advocates — and Kaminsky also sees an "end date" for the goals as crucial. Iwanowicz, who's group has backed the CCPA as part of NY Renews, said the lack of a timeline weakens Cuomo's plan.
"You want to have long-term surety," said Iwanowicz. "Communities need to know this is where we're going. Businesses who are writing business plans need to know this is where we're going."
Some environmental groups are also pushing more aggressive goals. Food and Water Watch and others are backing the Off Fossil Fuels Act, which would block any new gas infrastructure and mandate zero emissions by 2030.
Implementation focus
Creating a council to plan for emissions reductions is not new — former Gov. David Paterson created a Climate Action Council to make plans to achieve an 80 by 50 goal in 2010 by executive order. It never completed its work.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which Cuomo directed to study this same goal in 2017, has not released that report despite previously saying it would be made public at the end of 2018.
A NYSERDA spokeswoman did not answer a question on why the report has not been released, saying only that NYSERDA plans to work with the new council to achieve its goals.
Cuomo's plan for the statutory Climate Action Council is different than previous efforts, said Jim Malatras, president of the Rockefeller Institute for Government. Malatras was formerly Cuomo's director of state operations and was lauded as the governor's "policy guru" during the State of the State address on Tuesday.
"We set a goal and we miss the goal. What the administration is saying is we don't just want to set goals, we want to achieve the implementation of these programs," Malatras said. "The important thing for the governor was we want to get there and we want to get there as soon as practicable."
Eliminating carbon emissions across the economy is significantly more complex than in the electric sector, Malatras said.
"You don't want people to rebel against that very notion," Malatras said. "If you say okay no more fossil fuel in 10 years, how do people react? You've seen through ballot initiatives and other things, people have reacted pretty negatively."
Cuomo's planned structure for the council also differs from that floated by legislators.
Cuomo's council would consist of at least nine members, primarily heads of his executive agencies and energy authorities, and he'd have the authority to appoint all three of the outside representatives from clean energy, environmental justice and labor groups.
The CCPA — the legislation envisioned by advocates and lawmakers — would have a much larger, 25-member council with appointments made by legislative leaders.
"We need to take a more democratic approach," Kaminsky said.
The Business Council of New York State's Darren Suarez argues that business needs to be explicitly included in the council as well.
Both Cuomo's measure and the CCPA call for creation of a climate justice group to focus on an equitable transition away from fossil fuels.
The CCPA mandates that 40 percent of all clean energy funds go to low-income, environmental justice communities impacted by climate change. Members of NY Renews also want job training and other support for workers in fossil fuel industries who may be impacted.
On the national level, the Green New Deal pushed by advocates calls for decarbonizing the entire economy within 10 years and includes driving massive investments in renewables to create good-paying jobs. Cuomo's proposal does include labor and environmental justice elements, but on a more limited scale.
"I cannot as a state guarantee full employment. That could be done on a national level," he said on Thursday.
Cuomo has also proposed an additional $70 million from utility ratepayers for communities where fossil fuel plants close on top of the $69 million already in the fund, first set up when coal plants began to retire in 2015.
Cost concerns
The state's business community is particularly concerned about the fiscal impact on industry.
"The Department of [Environmental] Conservation is provided broad authority to regulate all aspects of human existence without due consideration to the economic or social impacts of those regulations," Suarez said. "In order to stop the planet from getting substantially warmer, we need to work together. Any solution must also ensure we retain our ability to affordably make things, grow food and move people."
Both the CCPA and the governor's measure lay out a range of options for what types of policies the council, and later the DEC, can consider to achieve emissions reductions.
Those include performance-based standards for major emissions sources and other policies, although the CCPA gives broader authority and more stringent enforcement requirements, while allowing the DEC to impose a price on carbon to support the goals.
The governor's plan also calls for economic analysis of proposals to get to a carbon neutral economy on a statewide and multi-state basis, including the impact on consumers and the public health benefits.
Regional and market-based approaches
Richard Kauffman, Cuomo's energy czar, has previously said a carbon price to drive emissions reductions would make more sense on the federal level. The governor's plan for the council reflects his concern about the limited impact a single-state emissions reduction goal could have, particularly because of the risks that it would simply drive industries to other states.
The Cuomo measure calls for the council to "prioritize regional, multi-state and international collaboration and action to deliver maximum impact." He calls for finding a pathway with U.S. Climate Alliance states to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius and examine "regional market-based programs."
Iwanowicz and the NY Renews coalition said such an approach may not be sufficient.
"We are concerned about provisions related to the consideration of market-based mechanisms that may include cap-and-trade agreements," NY Renews said in a statement. "We strongly believe the state must aim for true emissions reduction goals that transition New York to being powered by safe, sustainable energy."
Expanded renewables goal
Cuomo's current target under the Clean Energy Standard is for 50 percent of electricity used in New York to come from renewables by 2030.
The legislation would increase that to 70 percent by 2035, with a 2040 goal focusing on all "carbon neutral" resources and thus keeping the door open for nuclear and other technologies.
Malatras said the intent is not to build any new nuclear plants or allow fossil fuel plants to purchase carbon credits for planting trees or other actions to offset emissions elsewhere.
"It really was a focus on those sources of power which are actually carbon neutral," he said. "It's a little broader right now because of nuclear and some other carbon-neutral sources so that's why it's not 100 percent renewable."
Even Cuomo's current targets for renewables face challenges around siting projects and transmission needed to get renewables from upstate to demand centers in the New York City area.
The state currently gets roughly 28 percent of its electricity from renewables including hydropower. About a third comes from nuclear power plants, including the aging upstate fleet that is receiving ratepayer subsidies. The main fuel for power plants in the state is natural gas.
Generator concerns
The Independent Power Producers of New York, which represents merchant generators including fossil fuel plants, has raised concerns about the state's focus on subsidies for specific technologies. The CES provides credits for new renewable energy generation, mandating that utilities purchase a certain amount from NYSERDA, which acts as the purchaser of those credits.
IPPNY's Gavin Donohue said Cuomo's new proposed goals for the electric sector were "beyond ambitious." He said that the state needed to be completely technology agnostic on how to achieve the carbon neutral goals.
Otherwise, the wholesale electric market that has driven down costs and emissions from the sector will be destroyed, he said. And ratepayers will be locked into long-term contracts that might be more expensive than new technology the market could develop.
"Markets will end," Donohue said. "Consumers will be harmed and we'll be back to a place where we were 20 years ago where reliability was harmed more often than not."
Donohue has been the main advocate for an effort to put a price on carbon in the wholesale electric markets at the New York Independent System Operator and says that could help achieve the state's goals.
He said having the state come up with its own social cost of carbon, which is in Cuomo's proposal, and the language about market-based solutions being considered across all sectors of the economy is a positive sign.
"If the carbon pricing initiative stays in law, having it in law and using the good work the ISO has done with the [Public Service Commission] will help move all sectors forward in reducing carbon," Donohue said.
Malatras said carbon pricing in the electric sector would have to be coupled with other policies.
"I think [the industry is] going to continue to evolve pretty rapidly," he said "And on some level we're agnostic on this, right. I think the overarching goal for the state… is of course keeping the rates affordable in that ballpark, but also the environmental component, the carbon reduction element as a public health and environmental matter is the overarching concern."
Cuomo and his energy team have never given a full-throated endorsement of the NYISO carbon pricing effort. Stakeholders say their buy-in is needed in part because the state is expected to set the price and tweaks are needed to renewable subsidies to tie them to market prices. So Cuomo's proposal to have DEC publish a social cost of carbon would be important to market players.
Environmental groups have engaged on the idea of carbon pricing in the electric market but say it would not be sufficient to achieve the state's goals. The Natural Resources Defense Council's Miles Farmer said a carbon adder should be paired with support for new renewables with policies like the Clean Energy Standard.
"We think it's a very good model, and what I think you've seen is the state already delivering results on this," Farmer said.
New York State Senate
New York State Assembly
Education Morning Newsletter
Delivered daily by 6 a.m., New York Education is your guide to the day's top education news and policy in Albany and around the Empire State.
Energy Morning Newsletter
Delivered daily by 6 a.m., New York Energy is your guide to the day's top energy news and policy in Albany and around the Empire State.
New York Health Care Morning Newsletter
Delivered daily by 6 a.m., New York Health Care is your guide to the day's top health care news and policy in Albany and around the Empire State.
Real Estate Morning Newsletter
Delivered daily by 6 a.m., New York Real Estate is your guide to the day's top real estate news and policy in Albany and around the Empire State.
Albany Morning Newsletter
Delivered daily by 6 a.m., Morning Albany examines the latest news in New York state politics and policy.
City Hall Morning Newsletter
Delivered daily by 6 a.m., City Hall Morning Newsletter examines the latest politics, policy and news happening in the Empire State.
New York CEO Report
Delivered monthly, New York CEO Report gives you a high-level outlook on policy issues driving the agenda in the Empire State.
City Council Agenda + Bill Tracker
A weekly round-up of legislation in City Council for politics and policy professionals.
New York Playbook
Nick Niedzwiadek and Erin Durkin's must-read briefing informing the daily conversation among knowledgeable New Yorkers
Inside Pro
Albany Pro
Our morning email with must-read analysis and breaking news on state news and politics.
City Hall Pro
A morning email with must-read analysis and breaking news on city news and politics.
POLITICO New York Pro's high-level outlook on the policy issues driving the month in New York State.
Original federal and state policy documents
More New York Articles
Elia heading to national education firm
Senate Republicans in potential swing districts report drop in fundraising
Port Authority selects German firm to run Newark Airport's new Terminal One
Cuomo threatens Con Ed over blackout
Pelosi announces resolution condemning Trump for racist tweets