Aaaaaand Gov. Hochul Announces Elimination Of 2030 GHG Target From State's Climate Law

[hatrack]

As part of ongoing budget negotiations, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing to delay emissions-reduction targets established in the state’s climate law. Over the past year, Hochul has hinted that she doesn’t think the state can hit the targets established in the 2019 Climate Act: a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2030, and an 85 percent reduction by 2050.

If Hochul gets her way, the timeline will change. During a press conference this month, Hochul said the state will revise its emissions targets through the state budget process, aiming for a 60 percent reduction by 2040 while keeping the 2050 target intact. She said the economic policy needed to achieve those targets would not be announced until 2028.

EDIT

Earlier this month, Hochul prematurely announced an agreement with the state legislature; negotiations are ongoing. According to the state’s latest report, statewide emissions in 2023 were around 15 percent below 1990 levels—far from the 2030 goal. In 2022, the state’s Climate Action Council, a group of scientists, utility representatives, policymakers and state agency leaders, released the Climate Scoping Plan. It set out a roadmap to meet the state’s climate targets.

The largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in New York are buildings, electricity generation and transportation, according to state data. Under Hochul’s leadership, multiple policies designed to reduce emissions in those sectors have been delayed, and industry groups are pushing for more. The state has delayed action on building electrification, which happens when a building transitions from gas heating and cooking to electric, to reduce emissions. The All-Electric Buildings Law, which was scheduled to take effect this year, would have imposed a gas ban on many new buildings. Buildings are responsible for almost 30 percent of the state’s emissions, according to state data from 2023.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23052026/new-york-governor-announces-climate-law-revisions/

[NNadir]

1. Closing Indian Point certainly didn't help. Which is a greater threat to New York City...

...inundation by seawater or a possible but highly unlikely leak of radiation from a nuclear plant that operated for decades without killing anyone but nonetheless scaring the shit out of illiterate ignoramuses?

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. To be fair to Hochul, it was Cuomo who didn't extend the licenses for Indian Point

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/23/cuomo-indian-nuclear-new-york-00521572

Ghost in the grid: Cuomo’s Indian Point shutdown haunts New York’s electric mix
The former governor's success in shutting down the downstate nuclear plant increased emissions and raised energy costs.

By MARIE J. FRENCH
08/23/2025 02:00 PM EDT

ALBANY, New York — Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s successful quest to shut down the Indian Point nuclear plant spiked electricity costs and dirtied the energy grid of the city he’s now running to lead.

The closure, once hailed by some fellow Democrats as a bold safety move, is now under heavier scrutiny as New York confronts surging electricity demand, rising emissions and lagging renewable projects.

Key Democrats including Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Ritchie Torres have voiced regrets or pointed to poor planning. And the city’s mayoral front-runner, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, has been largely silent — leaving Cuomo’s energy legacy newly relevant as nuclear power gains ground in national climate politics.

Cuomo fought for decades to shut the plant, located 25 miles north of New York City. He raised concerns about the safety of the aging facility and its proximity to the nation’s biggest population center, where an evacuation — if the worst happened — would be impossible.

…

[NNadir]

4. Yeah I know. Cuomo's father also was responsible for not opening Shoreham.

Ultimately, years later, Long Island was partially inundated by seawater during Hurricane Sandy. It was just the first shot across the bow.

My stepbrother's family went up to the attic with seawater rising through the floor boards during that adventure. Happily the storm subsided before all eight of them drowned in their attic.

It does seem that Long Island doesn't have an evacuation plan for seawater but thought it needed one for Shoreham to open.

I was a dumb fuck antinuke when I grew up on Long Island and participated in protests against Shoreham.

I helped to kill the future of humanity, and all the expiation in my later life has not helped all that much.

We still, this late in the game, have lots of antinukes and "I'm not an antinuke" antinukes around here and elsewhere working to make sure that lots more people die from extreme global heating. I encounter them here all the time.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. That helps to explain your hardline opposition to renewable energy

At one time you had a hardline opposition to nuclear power. I’ve noticed (for example) that former smokers and recovering alcoholics can be the least tolerant of those who do what they once did.

In my youth, I was ambivalent towards nuclear power, but I certainly didn’t protest against it. I didn’t display a “No Nukes” icon. I understood the “greenhouse effect.” There was no “controversy” regarding it (at least that I was aware of.) It was simply science. Nuclear power had its undeniable downsides, but at the time of my youth, apart from hydroelectric generation, there really was no viable alternative to burning fossil fuels, other than burning atoms. (I helped my father replace our oil furnace with a high efficiency wood stove, because wood was supposedly “carbon neutral.” Wood is problematic and ,even if it wasn’t, could never “scale up” sufficiently.)

Renewables like (PV solar and wind) have their drawbacks, but countries are successfully integrating them into their energy systems. Fusion appears to be on a comparable timetable to “Gen IV” fission reactors and offers several advantages.

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/05/20/nuclear-fusion-without-massive-land-use-huge-fuel-costs.html

[NNadir]

9. It doesn't really explain my hardline position against so called "renewable energy" at all. When I joined DU in 2002...

...I was for anything that wasn't fossil fuels, including solar and wind. I now find this to be as embarrassing as I find my opposition to Shoreham - opposition which helped to kill people - back then.

(At the "waste to energy" "garbage incinerators" LILCO plant in East Northport, billed as "renewable energy" the ash would fall on cars and damage the paint irreversibly; one had to be sure to wash one's car after going to the beach at Eaton's Neck to avoid this. Imagine what that ash did to lungs.)

However, post-Chornobyl, which revealed the worst case for nuclear energy in undeniable terms, I was increasingly pronuclear by the late 1980's.

At that time, my access to the scientific literature was not electronic, since one had to pay quite a bit for electronic access. I lived and breathed paper journals and abstracts, which were very laborious to use, and all of the time that I was in libraries I was devoted to my professional life which has nothing to do with energy issues.

What I realized when I came to DU was that - this is still true today - was that most advocates of solar and wind had zero interest in addressing fossil fuels; mostly they claimed it made nuclear energy unnecessary. The rhetoric at that time was - and it had become absurd on a scale that bogles the imagination - that if only we spent as much money on nuclear as we spent on solar and wind, a nirvana would break out. Any opposition to fossil fuels was an afterthought, although after Al Gore's 2000 campaign lip service to eliminating fossil fuels with solar and wind was paid.

It was just that, and still is, lip service.

Today the money spent on mass and land intensive so called "renewable energy" dwarfs that spent on nuclear energy, and here we are, with a collapsing atmosphere.

When University libraries went electronic, my literature searches became far more facile, and I began to research the claims of "solar will save us" and "wind will save us" types here and at Daily Kos, until I was banned at the latter site, for citing, repeatedly, and my most harsh terms, the famous Kharecha and Hansen paper I still cite here:

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

Now mind you, the antinuke assholes at DailyKos, which included the autocratic owner of that site, loved to wax romantic about how much they admired the "science" of Jim Hansen because they were "pro-science" until he said something they didn't like, where suddenly Hansen was persona non grata. I compare them to antivaxers, if you must know. Where "science" is concerned, they only hear what they want to hear. They switched allegiance to the moron Joe Romm, and I was banned at Kos for making the simple, and quite accurate true statement that "If Jim Hansen's paper is right, opposing nuclear energy is murder." It was a true statement in 2013; it's true 13 years later in 2026.

When I was banned at DailyKos in 2013 the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide - the yearly average - was 396.74 ppm.

For April, 2026:

April 2026: 431.12 ppm
April 2025: 429.64 ppm
Last updated: May 05, 2026

Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2

Heckuva job antinukes, Heckuva job!

After being banned at DailyKos, I focused more and more at DU, which has a jury system and MIRT to judge who can and cannot stay. The site's owners loosely control access via the trusted membership. It's why DU is the best liberal website in the United States, perhaps anywhere. I often get in trouble here for my corrosive wit, my anger - and often my inability to control it - at the degradation of the planetary atmosphere which is accelerating, a result I lay at the feet of antinukes, but I've survived at DU, even as the planet is in danger of not surviving.

I did what I could, very little, largely here and it's hardly enough. At least I raised a nuclear engineer, so there's that.

Anyway...

The more I heard antinukes and "I'm not an antinuke" antinukes praise solar and wind garbage, and the more I looked into their claims relying on published literature in the primary scientific literature, the more I came to reject so called "renewable energy." Mind you, the solar and wind advocates were then and still today were directed almost solely at criticizing nuclear energy. My view, continuously reinforced every time they open their mouths, is that they couldn't care less about fossil fuels. The more I poked around, the more realized that solar and wind are not sustainable, not "green," not clean in any of the senses that would matter to, say, John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, who believed, as solar and wind advocates do not, but I do, that wilderness should be preserved rather than industrialized. I am pro-wilderness, just as Muir was. When I moved to California I visited Yosemite many times, and I can imagine what the Hetch Hetchy valley was, and weep that now it is an industrial plant for producing electricity.

By the way, the antinuke mythology was largely born on Long Island, since LILCO proposed three nuclear plants but only built only one, that at Shoreham. The other two were proposed at Jamesport, on the North Fork, and, most importantly, in the extremely wealthy Lloyd's Neck area. The wealthy people living in Lloyd's Neck certainly didn't want cement trucks passing through their neighborhoods during plant construction, commuters to the construction site, and ultimately commuters to the plant itself along with power lines potentially ruining their million dollar views. Afterall, the plant would have only served middle class and lower middle class (the class to which I belonged when growing up) and even poor people. They couldn't give a fuck about their electricity source, as long as it came from, was generated, in areas where poor people lived. They were rich, had connections, and began assembling all of the specious arguments about radiation and so called "nuclear waste" and accidents, blah, blah, blah, using their connections at Newsday to whip up an antinuke hysterical storm that then outgrew Long Island and prevails all over the world today.

It didn't help that LILCO's engineers were not nuclear engineers really. They acted like they were building a coal plant or garbage incineration plant, and kept discovering details indicating that a nuclear plant was something quite different, cleaner, safer, more reliable, but different. Hence they kept needing to retrofit this and that at high cost in delays and money.

Shoreham did involve incompetence in the execution of its construction, which, to repeat, didn't help, but the plant should have opened and saved lives on Long Island and elsewhere. Long Island, and the world is paying the price for it not opening. It's become a touchstone for ignorant antinukes and "I'm not an antinuke" antinukes.

However, the successful anti-Shoreham effort is mostly the result of the efforts initiated by rich people in Lloyd's Neck to whip up irrational fear and ignorance that now affects the whole planet which is burning as a result.

I have some sympathy for "eat the rich."

Do I make myself clear?

I trust you're having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

[slightlv]

2. The only time they'll admit there's an issue with climate

is when they're 10 feet under water. THEN they *might* admit something needs to be done.... or at least, boot it to a new committee.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. This is not a case of Hochul not admitting there's a problem

She’s under pressure because New Yorkers have been hit with rising electricity prices.

New York’s Electricity Prices Among the Highest in the Country
February 13, 2026

Albany, NY — New York households continue to pay some of the highest electricity prices in the nation, according to data from the Empire Center and the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In November 2025, the average residential electricity price in New York was 26.49 cents per kilowatt-hour, ranking 8th highest in the U.S. and exceeding the national average by 49 percent. Over the past 12 months, electricity prices in New York rose by 7.1 percent, compared to 5.5 percent nationwide.

Average residential natural gas prices were $17.95 per thousand cubic feet, ranking 19th highest nationally and 20 percent above the U.S. average.

Electricity prices in New York have surged since 2019, widening the gap between what New Yorkers pay and the national average.

…

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Political realities

NY’s climate goals were set by Hochul's predecessor “Disgraced Former Governor" Andrew Cuomo. Our independent grid operator, NYISO warned us years ago, that we had done a great job of shutting down coal plants, but we were not replacing them fast enough with clean alternatives. Hochul has caught a fair deal of flack from “progressives" for passing a plan that included new “advanced nuclear” energy (SMR’s and/or nuclear fusion.)

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-directs-new-york-power-authority-develop-zero-emission-advanced-nuclear-energy

JUNE 23, 2025
Albany, NY
Governor Hochul Directs New York Power Authority to Develop a Zero-Emission Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology Power Plant

Governor Kathy Hochul today directed the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to develop and construct a zero-emission advanced nuclear power plant in Upstate New York to support a reliable and affordable electric grid, while providing the necessary zero-emission electricity to achieve a clean energy economy. This builds on other opportunities announced in Governor Hochul’s 2025 State of the State to catalyze nuclear energy development in New York.

“As New York State electrifies its economy, deactivates aging fossil fuel power generation and continues to attract large manufacturers that create good-paying jobs, we must embrace an energy policy of abundance that centers on energy independence and supply chain security to ensure New York controls its energy future,” Governor Hochul said. “This is the second time during my administration that I am calling on the New York Power Authority to lead a critical energy initiative, and just as it is doing with the expedited buildout of renewable energy and transmission, it will now safely and rapidly deploy clean, reliable nuclear power for the benefit of all New Yorkers.”

As a result of economic growth and fossil fuel power plant retirements, New York needs new, clean electricity resources to meet growing power demand from new industrial development, building electrification and electric vehicles. The advanced nuclear plant will complement New York’s ongoing deployment of renewable energy by adding zero-emission baseload power, providing reliable and affordable clean energy to advance the State’s goal to achieve a clean energy economy.

…

NYPA will immediately begin evaluation of technologies, business models, and locations for this first nuclear power plant and will secure the key partnerships needed for the project. This process will include site and technology feasibility assessments as well as consideration of financing options, in coordination with the forthcoming studies included in the master plan for Responsible Advanced Nuclear Development in New York, led by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and DPS. Candidate locations will be assessed for suitability based on public safety, strength of community support, compatibility with existing infrastructure, as well as skilled labor and land availability.

…

https://riverheadlocal.com/2025/06/29/hochuls-nuclear-plant-announcement-draws-sharp-criticism-from-nuclear-energy-opponents/

Hochul’s nuclear plant announcement draws sharp criticism from nuclear energy opponents

By Karl Grossman
Jun 29, 2025, 7:39 am
Governor Kathy Hochul continued her push for nuclear power in New York State by announcing on June 21 that she has “directed the New York Power Authority” to “develop a new nuclear facility” to be built “upstate” and, as the heading of her announcement said, be the “First New Nuclear Power Construction in New York State in a Generation.”

Her move was criticized by safe-energy and climate activists and participants in the decades-long battle against nuclear power on Long Island. For years, the Long Island Lighting Company sought to build seven to eleven nuclear power plants. The Shoreham plant was the first constructed, but was stopped from going into operation, with grassroots action playing a pivotal role in blocking it.

A key claim by Hochul in her announcement was that nuclear power provides “zero-emission” energy in terms of emitting carbon that causes climate change. However, as emphasized in a statement by a coalition of organizations — including Don’t Waste NY and the Green Education and Legal Fund— this ignores the nuclear power life cycle.

“Despite the spin from the governor and industry, nuclear is far from ‘carbon free’ with significant carbon emissions during the construction of plants, the mining, processing and transportation of the fuel, and the storage of long-lived waste,” they said.

…

It will be years before any "advanced nuclear" plant will be on-line. In the meantime, NYS is importing a lot of electricity, which may not be all that clean.

While currently leading her virtually unknown Republican opponent, Blakeman, she’s “underwater” on her favorability ratings in “the polls.” To make it clear what she’s up against, Lee Zelden (the administration bozo currently leading the EPA) ran against her four years ago, and came too close for comfort.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/25/zeldin-gop-new-york-hochul-00842719

4 years after Zeldin’s near win, New York GOP still can’t break through
The Nassau County executive is mounting an increasingly uphill bid against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.

…

Blakeman’s team has hammered Hochul over skyrocketing utility bills. He’s blasted the state’s high tax climate and warned the governor will acquiesce to demands from left-leaning Democrats like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to hike taxes on corporations and wealthy people. On that front, he has moved to attach the governor to the mayor’s lefty proposals, like a far-fetched move to significantly lower the inheritance tax threshold from $7.3 million to $750,000. Such a change would make the tax apply to a broad swath of middle-income people.

…

The governor has moved to build up the political infrastructure of the state Democratic Committee — an apparatus that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo let atrophy during his decade in office. She has used the committee as a fundraising vehicle and, this month, the party announced it would launch a sustained advertising blitz against Blakeman, spending more than $1 million to hammer him over his support for Trump.

…

Our beloved leader has a lot of voters upstate, and a lot “upstaters” weren’t happy about the idea of building a nuclear plant in their “back yard” to power New York City.

https://sri.siena.edu/2026/05/05/hochul-favorability-approval-ratings-each-drop-8-points-to-lowest-levels-in-last-year-her-lead-over-blakeman-grows-3-points-to-49-33/

Hochul Favorability & Approval Ratings Each Drop 8 Points To Lowest Levels In Last Year; Her Lead Over Blakeman Grows 3 Points to 49-33%

Loudonville, NY. Governor Kathy Hochul has a 41-46% favorability rating, down from 45-42% in March, her lowest favorability rating since June 2025. Her job approval rating stands at 48-44%, down from 52-40% in March, her lowest job approval rating since April 2025. At the same time, Hochul’s lead over Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman edged up three points to 49-33%, from 47-34% in March, according to a new Siena Poll of New York State registered voters released today.

Voters say, 49-32%, New York’s best days are still ahead, rather than behind us, and 7% say New York’s best days are taking place now. When it comes to New York’s $260+ billion budget and the money going to health care, education, infrastructure, and other programs, a plurality of voters, 36%, says the state does not spend enough, compared to 29% who say the spends the right amount, and 22% who say the state spends too much.

“Is it the late state budget? Is it something the Governor has said or done? Hard to say, but either way, Hochul heads into a campaign – with an election 26 weeks from today – with her lowest favorability and job approval ratings in about a year,” Siena pollster Steven Greenberg said. “Both Hochul’s favorability and approval ratings fell the most in the last month with independents, men and voters from New York City. While she continues to be in positive territory on both measures in New York City, she has fallen even deeper underwater with independents.

“Yet, Hochul’s lead over still-largely-unknown Blakeman – 64% of voters have never heard of or don’t have an opinion about him – has nudged up three points in the last month to 49-33%,” Greenberg said. “Six months out, voters are largely in their partisan lanes. Three-quarters of Democrats are with Hochul. Three-quarters of Republicans are with Blakeman. And independents tilt toward Blakeman by two points, down from seven points in March. Hochul leads by 34 points in New York City and by a handful of points outside of the City.”

…

[hatrack]

6. *COUGH "Blue-Ribbon Panel" *COUGH*