Five years ago this month, on July 18, 2019, New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act was signed into law. The CLCPA established ambitious climate goals and a justice-oriented approach to achieving them. It demanded steep greenhouse gas emissions reductions — at least 85% across New York’s entire economy, with a goal of net-zero emissions.
The CLCPA required rapid evolution of the electric grid to reach 100% clean electricity. And it sought to foster more equitable outcomes for disadvantaged communities, requiring that they receive a set percentage of the benefits of clean energy spending. This provision became the model for the federal government’s “Justice40” policy.
That moment of New York climate and justice leadership is starting to seem very distant. Although the CLCPA remains the law of the land, agencies increasingly treat it as strangely optional. Their inaction risks foregoing a generational opportunity to build the future that the law demands — and increasing the cost that future New Yorkers will bear to clean up (and live with) their mess. The state entities charged with making it a reality must get started on the core programs that equitably fund investments in a cleaner, safer future.
The CLCPA gives New York’s environmental agency, the Department of Environmental Conservation, primary responsibility for economy-wide emissions reductions, and directs all other agencies and authorities to help achieve them. The law established a multi-year process to work out key details, which culminated in a scoping plan. The DEC then had until January 2024, to promulgate rules and regulations to achieve those reductions. Then, the state would have had six years to achieve the first benchmark: 40% cuts by 2030.
But no such rules and regulations have been introduced. Last year, the DEC floated the concept of a New York Cap and Invest Program, which had been recommended in the scoping plan. NYCI would put a price on emissions outside the electric sector (electricity already faces a carbon price through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative). It would thus create an economic incentive to reduce emissions and raise funds to build low-emissions infrastructure and programs.
But the NYCI details that were made public appeared to be too modest to accomplish what the law requires. Since then, the DEC has fallen silent, and recent comments by the governor suggest no attempt to make good on the CLCPA’s promise.
Beyond failing to advance NYCI, New York is backsliding on climate, having suspended congestion pricing — the flagship program that would deter traffic congestion and emissions while raising funds to improve low-carbon public transportation. The Legislature specifically directed the establishment of congestion pricing, and the scoping plan treated it as a done deal.
And yet, after years of hard work to shape a fair and effective program, secure the necessary approvals, and construct the operational infrastructure, congestion pricing has been shelved, and the MTA has had to suspend needed repairs and improvements that it would fund. By leaving the tolling infrastructure unused, New York is losing hundreds of millions of dollars, driving up future costs, and burdening disadvantaged communities. At this point, lawsuits may force the courts to tell state agencies that congestion pricing and the improvements it funds are not optional.
While NYCI and congestion pricing remain stalled, New York’s electric sector is at least on the road. The CLCPA gave New York’s utility regulator, the Public Service Commission, primary responsibility for decarbonizing electricity, and the PSC has been working toward CLCPA renewable energy goals in collaboration with other agencies since 2020. While they too are unlikely to make their 2030 goals, there is now an opportunity for course correction, as the PSC and the state Energy Research and Development Authority recently released, for public consideration and comment, a report examining the deficit and proposing options.
To achieve the CLCPA’s climate and justice goals, sectors other than electricity also require sustained focus and accountability, as well as incentives and dedicated funding. Placing a modest regulatory cost on harmful activities, like traffic congestion and climate pollution, can help fund cleaner, more beneficial alternatives fairly and efficiently. By halting their efforts at the starting gate, the agencies and authorities responsible for effecting the CLCPA’s vision are threatening to reduce the landmark law to empty words. They need to act now rather than allow New York’s CLCPA’s goals to slip away.
Stein is the state policy director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law.
