New York Passed a Historic Climate Justice Bill. Now Hochul Wants to Water it Down

In 2019, New York lawmakers made a decisive move to counteract the first Trump administration’s vast rollbacks of environmental protections by enacting the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The law set ambitious goals for curtailing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions: 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, and 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

In addition to its emissions goals, the bill provides strong protections for environmental justice communities. These are often Black and Brown neighborhoods that have long faced environmental racism, which has forced the people in these communities to endure a disproportionate burden from environmental hazards.

While the bill has been enacted, the cap-and-invest program central to reducing greenhouse gas emissions still hasn’t come to fruition – and New York is lagging behind meeting the goals set out by the law. This not only means that greenhouse gas emissions are higher than intended but also that the law has failed to bring much-needed funding intended for environmental justice communities to help reduce pollution and create jobs.

Now, under a second Trump administration even more determined to erase environmental protections, Governor Hochul has proposed  rollbacks to the bill the legislature passed seven years ago. She wants to enact these rollbacks as part of state budget negotiations, which happen behind closed doors with very little public oversight or debate.

Why Is the Law at Risk Now?

The state had until 2024 to issue regulations that would lead to meeting the CLPCA’s emissions goals, but when lawmakers failed to meet this deadline, Citizen Action of New York, PUSH Buffalo, Sierra Club, and WE ACT for Environmental Justice – represented by Earthjustice, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic –  filed a lawsuit demanding the state release the guidelines. That October, an Albany County judge ruled that the state had violated the CLPCA by failing to issue the emissions regulations and issued a deadline of February 6, 2026 for the state to do so. But Hochul appealed the decision, essentially finagling an even longer extension that gives lawmakers an opportunity to change the law itself instead of complying with it.

After the ruling came down, the New York State Energy and Development Authority (NYSERDA) sent a memo to Gov Hochul warning that costs to natural gas customers and car owners could go up substantially under a fully-enacted CLPCA. In the memo, NYSERDA calls the cap-and-invest plan “infeasible” but is light on the math, not fully explaining how it arrived at the estimates used in its calculations. The memo does also note that households could save up to $804 under the law by switching to electric energy and changing their homes to be more energy efficient.

Environmental activists disputed the memo’s forecast cost increases, pointing to an earlier and more thorough report from Resources for the Future and The New York City Environmental Justice Alliance which concluded that households making less than $200,000 per year would actually see decreased costs.

Hochul’s recently-proposed changes include pushing back the issuance of regulations to 2030 and changing the methodology used to count emissions in a way that makes targets easier to reach.

Allowing greenhouse gases to remain at levels higher than the law intended will directly harm communities on the front lines of climate change. And while the Governor’s has not proposed watering down the parts of the CLPCA that directly address environmental racism, any re-opening of the law to negotiation with the legislature puts these protections at risk.

How Does the CLPCA Support Racial and Environmental Justice?

As the federal government rolls back climate protections, the Governor’s push to weaken this historic law behind closed doors is an affront to Black and Brown communities that have long borne the brunt of pollution. Discriminatory zoning laws and the placement of infrastructure such as highways, incinerators and landfills expose them to a disproportionate amount of toxins. In addition to this contamination, many of these communities find themselves on the front lines of climate change today. The CLPCA directly addresses these harms and requires the government to protect disadvantaged communities.

Thirty-five percent of census tracts in the state were designated as disadvantaged communities and granted protection under the law based on criteria that include proximity to power generators, landfills, and other pollution-emitting infrastructure.

The CLPCA safeguards against further contamination in these communities by prohibiting state and local governments from awarding permits that would increase harmful emissions or otherwise disproportionately burden them. It also requires at least 35 percent of the benefits of the law – such as those from a cap-and-invest program – be directed towards disadvantaged communities.

How Does the Law Support the Fight for Environmental Justice?

The CLCPA provides critical safeguards against environmental racism. Environmental justice advocates, like the NYCLU, have successfully used the CLPCA to protect disadvantaged communities from further harm. For example, in Buffalo, the NYCLU sued the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) over its decision to proceed with redeveloping the Kensington Expressway without conducting a full and comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The expressway has brought harm to a Black community for decades. Its construction in the 1960s ripped through and displaced the almost entirely Black neighborhood, demolishing thousands of homes and businesses. The expressway’s endless stream of pollution has also caused devastating health effects. Black residents in the area have some of the highest rates of asthma, respiratory disease, and premature death.

Similarly, in Rensselaer County, the S.A. Dunn landfill has exposed residents to harmful contamination for years. This contamination lead regulators to grant the community disadvantaged status under the CLPCA. In an amicus brief, the NYCLU argued that the Department of Environmental Conservation’s renewal of the landfill’s permit was illegal, as it disproportionately burdened a disadvantaged community in clear defiance of the CLCPA.

If the governor and state lawmakers amend the law to remove these safeguards, they will strip advocates for environmental and racial justice of a powerful tool to protect environmental justice communities from harm.

Governor Hochul has defended her decisions to delay implementation and revisit the law by claiming she “needs more time.”

But Black and Brown New Yorkers in disadvantaged communities, who breathe in more than double their share of air pollution, do not have more time. They need relief today, and they need the CLPCA to protect them from further harm. Any renegotiation of the law puts disadvantaged communities at risk. They must not become pawns in lawmakers’ backroom negotiations.

We urge the Governor to comply with the CLCPA and call on lawmakers to reject any efforts to weaken it.