110+ Local Elected Officials Urge Albany Lawmakers To Defend Against Governor Hochul's Climate Law Rollback

ALBANY, NY (04/17/2026) (readMedia)-- Yesterday, more than 110 local elected officials from across New York state sent a letter to the Legislature urging state lawmakers to hold the line and reject Governor Hochul's proposed rollback of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The letter, signed by Mayors, Councilmembers and County officials from Western New York to Long Island, comes as leaders within the Governor's own party continue to oppose her last-minute bid to force a rollback of climate regulations into the budget under the guise of "affordability."

Read the full letter here.

Last month, the Governor revealed her plan to gut New York's Climate Law and maintain the fossil fuel status quo in the name of "affordability" - even though New Yorkers' high energy bills are being caused by skyrocketing gas prices. Already, 1 in 4 New Yorkers cannot afford their energy bills, and the Governor herself has admitted that gutting the CLCPA will do nothing to lower energy bills.

Instead of investing in renewable energy to actually lower energy bills, the Governor is now trying to force state lawmakers to accept a proposal to change how the State accounts for methane so it appears our emissions have declined when they have not. Her proposal would also delay requirements to implement regulations under the law until December 31, 2030, pushing climate obligations and delaying renewable investments by years.

In the letter, local elected officials warn that weakening the CLCPA would undermine the state's progress on delivering affordable energy, writing, "The most straightforward argument for staying the course is economic." The letter continues, "Renewable energy is affordable energy, and its costs continue to fall. Fossil fuel prices, by contrast, are volatile and subject to global disruption... Every dollar we delay investing in clean energy is a dollar our residents will spend on increasingly expensive fossil fuels." Read the full letter here.

The letter also highlights how further delays to the Climate Law are already hurting New Yorkers, who are suffering from a status quo that is decimating their communities and hurting their wallets. Lawmakers write, "Delaying action does not reduce cost; it shifts it - to future taxpayers, to emergency responders, and to the most vulnerable residents in every community we serve," adding that any rollback will, "delay critical community investments, and leave our residents exposed to the mounting costs of both fossil fuel dependence and climate inaction."

The Governor's push follows a series of contradictory and misleading excuses for why she is seeking to renege on New York's climate commitments, all while trying to portray herself as a climate champion. In recent weeks, she has pointed to a memo from her own administration that suggested enacting the CLCPA will lead to higher energy bills - a claim that lawmakers in her own party have rejected. She has separately suggested that New Yorkers are overpaying for energy because of the CLCPA and that amending the law will save New Yorkers money in the short-term, which she later admitted was "false." She even cited the Trump administration's attack on Iran as an excuse to roll back the CLCPA, claiming it would somehow "protect consumers" who are already suffering from high energy bills.