Pivotal Legislation Fails

Their most significant loss was the exclusion of the NY Heat Act, a bill that hundreds of environmental groups rallied behind this session because it had the power to curb the expansion of gas infrastructure across the state. Despite their unified front, the bill failed to make the budget thanks to a few holdouts in the Assembly who advocates say were persuaded by fossil fuels groups.

Two other bills that sought to confront the fossil fuel industry head on—the Climate Change Super Fund and the Stop Climate Polluters Handouts Act—also didn’t make the cut. The first would require oil and gas producers to pay billions of dollars to the state for their massive role in contributing to global warming, and the second would stop them from getting tax breaks. 

Other disappointments for the climate movement include the exclusion of Green Transit Green Jobs, which would phase out purchases of new fossil fuel transit buses starting in 2029. And the Package Reduction and Recycling Act, an ambitious attempt to get companies to redesign the products they sell in New York to make sure they are recyclable.

Earth Justice’s policy advocate Liz Moran says the budget “missed the mark” particularly because it failed to include the most pivotal legislation for securing a swifter transition of fossil fuels: NY Heat.

While state lawmakers still have until June to pass bills through the traditional legislative process—passing with majority votes in both the full Senate and Assembly—that can be a tougher path. NY Heat stalled during the previous two sessions, and despite passing in the Senate last year as well as this spring, it’s yet to come up for a full vote in the Assembly.

“We have a budget that does not reflect the urgency of the climate crisis,” Moran told City Limits. “We really need lawmakers to act in the best interest of the people. Not the interests of the oil and gas industry. We need them to embrace policies that are going to save people money, create good jobs, and fight climate change.”

NY HEAT passed the Senate both this session and last, and even earned a stamp of approval from Gov. Kathy Hochul, who included her own version of the legislation in her budget proposal earlier this year. 

But lawmakers and advocates attributed its failure in the budget deal to extensive lobbying efforts carried out by National Fuel, one of the state’s largest gas providers. The company has been leading a campaign to stop New York from phasing out gas and going electric.

Next TCCPI Meeting

Friday, May 31, 2024

9 to 11 am

TCCPI meetings have moved online. Contact Peter Bardaglio, the TCCPI coordinator, for further details at pbardaglio@gmail.com.

Hydrofracking in Pennsylvania. Photo by Nicholas_T licensed under CC BY 2.0 DEED.

New York State lawmakers have voted to pass a bill prohibiting carbon dioxide fracking, expanding the state’s decade-old fracking ban.

The legislation—which amends the existing environmental conservation law—was introduced in January and passed the state Assembly in early March by a margin of 98-50. On March 20, the bill passed the state Senate by a 46-16 vote and it now awaits the signature of Governor Kathy Hochul.

Climate Justice Communities

Justice50 establishes minimum spending floors of 50% for Green New Deal programs and capital budgets. It also sets workforce training and development goals aimed at underserved groups to achieve 40% representation of individuals from climate justice communities. Approving Justice50 also codifies the city's commitment to directing budget resources to address inequality. City staff will now use the Justice50 criteria to evaluate budget requests and report on spending distributions, and departments can submit new types of projects with climate justice benefits in mind. 

Sustainability Director Rebecca Evans has said that determining the exact number of Ithaca’s population considered to be a climate justice community is complicated due to census data limitations. However, she proposed conducting additional household surveys drawing on Green Hydrogen Project funds to better identify climate justice areas. 

Evans said that the $50,000 being allocated to a census survey as a result of the recently approved Green Hydrogen project will “actually be used to collect household-by-household data so that we could map [climate Justice communities] more granularly.” 

The vote would also allocate 10% of capital budgets to participatory budgeting, where community members directly propose and vote on spending.

Evans said the goal is to ensure that the City is balancing its investments across all of its communities. “We don’t want to see new roads, bridges, and infrastructure in some of the wealthier neighborhoods and not see any in lower-income neighborhoods or bipoc nighborhoods,” Evans said. 

The View from Abroad: A Global Perspective on Climate Solutions

By Bossombra Kouame, Cornell Humphrey Fellow

My Humphrey Fellow Experience

I was fortunate enough to join the ranks of the Humphrey Fellows at Cornell University this past academic year. The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program serves as a beacon for collaborative action, empowering individuals to effect meaningful transformation on both local and global scales, all for the betterment of humanity.

The program cultivates global leaders who unite to tackle pressing issues and drive positive change worldwide. By engaging in academic pursuits and professional growth alongside American peers, participants contribute to a vast network dedicated to advancing critical areas.

I first arrived in the U.S. this past spring at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, filled with a mix of curiosity and apprehension. My experience during the Long-Term English (LTE) training at the university, however, was highly enjoyable. Throughout the program, we participated in various activities aimed at enhancing our language proficiency and cultural understanding.

Exploring destinations like Turkey Run State Park, Springfield, and Chicago enriched our cultural experiences. Engaging in activities promoting cultural exchange and conversational practice further enhanced our language abilities and broadened our perspectives.

At Cornell, I was involved in attending courses, giving talks, and participating in seminar series such as the Global Development Seminar at CALS and the Institute of African Development Seminar at the Einaudi Center for International Studies, among others.

I attended classes related to Circular Economics, Environmental Governance and Planning, software-based skills, and research methods and tools, where I was exposed to U.S. university-level teaching methods and environment. I can say without hesitation that they were brilliantly focused on active learning.

I also participated in mentoring activities such as the PACT (Practitioner Assistant Collaborative Training) program at CALS, where I mentored an undergrad student engaged in hands-on research. As Humphrey Fellows, we were honored to act as experts for the New York Youth Institute Forum, aiming to select outstanding high school students to pitch at the World Food Price Forum and boost them in their first steps as food security stewards. I served as a teacher in the Foreign Language Introduction Program (FLIP) at the Einaudi Center, where we taught French to elementary school students and helped to open their mind to other cultures.

In addition, I attended workshops at Ohio University and Kirkwood Community College in Iowa that polished my insights on various topics like climate change and food security. I attended the Emerging Markets Institute (EMI) forum at Cornell Tech in New York City. Closer to home, I was privileged to take part in guided field trips at the Kehoe Nature Preserve and Stevenson Forest Preserve, where I learned about forest conservation related issues in the U.S. and how Finger Lake Land Trust is addressing them.

Besides all these learning experiences, we had the chance to have fun with visits to Niagara Falls, Ithaca waterfalls, Adirondack Park, Alfred State College, New York State Fair, Ithaca Apple Festival, Cornell Botanical Garden, Cornell Dairy Barn, and Cornell Museum of Art.

In seeking a professional affiliation as part of the Humphrey Fellowship program, I got to hear Peter Bardaglio speak at the Global Development Seminar about the local work on climate action and the energy transition. Impressed by the amazing work being done, I applied for a collaborative experience with the Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative (TCCPI).

The way is hard, the challenges are tremendous, but it’s clear that the community’s effort is making a difference! The experience has been excellent and will provide me with the skills to launch similar initiatives involving the transition to a low carbon economy in Cote d’Ivoire. Thumbs up TCCPI and affiliated partners!

When the state's final budget was released earlier this month, as the lead article reports above, not a single major climate bill was included. No Climate Change Superfund Act, no NY HEAT Act, no Stop Climate Polluter Handouts Act.

It was a shocking development in light of the state's supposed commitment to achieving an 85% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That's what New York State's 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) requires, but you'd never know it flipping though the pages of this year's budget book.

The operative word in the title of the CLCPA is "leadership." It was hard to discern any of that, however, when it came to Gov. Hochul and the legislature, especially the General Assembly. Instead, anxiety about the upcoming elections prevailed and Democrats took the safe way out. It was a sad day in Albany and there was little to celebrate when Earth Day occurred a few days later.

The New York State Capitol in Albany. Photo by Craig Fildes licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED.

The Fossil Fuel Industry Betrayal

It was bad enough when we found out this past January that the fossil fuel industry had more than enough evidence as early as 1954 to understand the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate. But then word came today, with the release of internal documents, that Big Oil lobbied against climate policies that they claimed to support. The betrayal was complete.

“For decades, the fossil-fuel industry has known about the economic and climate harms of its products," declared Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) "but [it] has deceived the American public to keep collecting more than $600bn each year in subsidies while raking in record-breaking profits."

Where Do We Go From Here?

In the context of these larger national events, the fact that oil and gas companies were a major factor in pressuring state legislators to forego climate legislation in this year's budget is especially galling. All three major bills directly confront the oil and gas firms. The NY HEAT Act seeks to eliminate subsidies for new gas hookups, eliminate the "obligation to serve" gas to neighborhoods, and ensure that no low-income household would pay more than 6% of its income for energy.

The Climate Change Superfund Act holds major oil companies accountable for the harm they inflicted on New York between 2000 and 2018. It would require these companies to bear a share of the costs of infrastructure investments required to adapt to the impacts of climate change in the state. The program would assess the major fossil fuel emitters $3 billion annually over the span of 25 years to offset the climate damages incurred by the state.

The Stop Climate Polluter Handouts Act aims at paring back the $1.6 billion taxpayers hand out each year to the oil and gas companies in tax subsidies and other breaks. It defies logic that the state continues to provide huge subsidies to an industry that is causing so much destruction. This bill would end the most egregious state subsidies, amounting to $265 million annually.

The fight to secure the passage of these three bills is far from over. Even though the budget has been set, the legislature still has until June 1 to gain their approval. This is clearly the tougher road but climate movement activists across the state, including TCCPI, are gearing up to push even harder over the next four weeks for this legislation to become law. It's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work!

Peter Bardaglio

TCCPI Coordinator