NEW YORK — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers closed the 2026 legislative session by gutting key provisions of the state's landmark climate law, scaling back emissions targets and reshaping how the state accounts for greenhouse gas output.
The 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act had set goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and 85 percent by 2050. The amendments weaken both benchmarks.
Vanessa Fajans-Turner, executive director of Environmental Advocates NY, said the revisions drop New York to the back of the pack among the 10 U.S. states with binding climate targets. She said the climate movement needs to reckon with how it lost this fight.
Hochul's administration cited energy affordability as the driving force. Ken Lovett, the governor's senior communications adviser on energy and environment, said Hochul's top priority is "keeping the lights on and costs down for all New Yorkers." Lovett blamed some of the pressure on "reckless policies coming out of Washington D.C." and said the changes are "commonsense reforms" that keep New York a climate leader while protecting consumers.
Climate groups counter that the Hochul administration failed to implement key provisions of the original law — including a cap-and-invest program — before moving to gut it. They say the governor changed the rules before seriously trying to meet them.
Alex Beauchamp, northern region director of Food & Water Watch, said other Democratic governors have pulled back on climate policy since the 2024 elections, citing affordability. But he said Hochul went further than most. New York, as one of the largest Democratic states, "should have the least pressure to do this kind of stuff," Beauchamp said. He said those governors took "the exact wrong lessons" from the 2024 results.
Shelley Welton, a law and energy policy professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Carey Law School, challenged the administration's framing of a conflict between climate law and affordability. She said key questions remain unanswered about how New York would have used revenue from a cap-and-invest program.
The rollback comes as states have assumed growing responsibility for climate policy, with the Trump administration dismantling federal programs. For advocates, New York's retreat carries particular weight.
