As War Spikes Gas Prices, Hochul Proposes To Stick New Yorkers with the Bill

ALBANY, NY (03/20/2026) (readMedia)-- Today, Governor Hochul shared her proposal to renege on the climate law so she can do nothing at all. Her plan would allow New York to maintain the fossil fuel status quo by changing how we account for methane. Doing this will make it appear that New York's emissions have declined when they have actually stayed the same, as well as delaying any requirement to even introduce regulations for the law until December 31, 2030. Liz Moran, New York Policy Advocate at Earthjustice, issued the following statement in response:

"Governor Hochul is having a meltdown after being held accountable for her failure of leadership. Now, she's pushing her manufactured election year crisis to the legislature so they have to deal with it, when they should be working together to drive down New Yorkers' skyrocketing energy bills. It's the war in Iran that's shooting up gas prices, not as the Governor herself admitted, the climate law. The legislature must resoundingly reject this absolute sham and work with the governor to implement the climate law and actually help New Yorkers."

Advocates will further respond to this decision at a zoom press conference today at 12. Join the zoom here.

Here's why Hochul's proposal must be rejected:

• By changing how we account for methane, overnight it will appear that New York is closer to meeting emission reductions goals while doing nothing differently. It means taking no action, keeping people on expensive gas longer.
• By moving the deadline to enact regulations, the governor avoids having to do anything to help New Yorkers transition to affordable, reliable, and secure clean energy until 2030. This makes the first 2030 deadline moot.

Advocates will again respond to the governor's proposal at a rally at the State Capitol on March 25.

Earlier this week, Governor Hochul admitted that reneging on the climate law won't lower anybody's bills. This admission came after 3 weeks of fearmongering on cost, full of misrepresentations and shady moves to make the public think that her hand is being forced toward an outlandish and expensive version of Cap & Invest outlined in a memo from NYSERDA. Read Earthjustice's detailed memo debunking NYSERDA's memo.

Here are Governor Hochul's flailing arguments to back up her proposal, and why they don't hold up:

Rolling Back The Climate Law Will Lower Costs for New Yorkers Now!

Governor Hochul has implied that amending the CLCPA will save New Yorkers money in the short-term, suggesting that New Yorkers have been overpaying for energy because of it:

"Just talk to anybody about their utility bill within the last couple weeks... It is staggering, and we cannot just tune out those cries for help from New Yorkers who are just getting crushed under the weight of this," she said on March 1st.

"I am laser focused on doing everything that I can to drive down costs and to try and get money returned to New Yorkers who have been overpaying," she told reporters on March 2nd.

"The costs have gone up so much I now have to say, 'What is the cost on the typical New York family? The goals are still worthy. But we have to think about the collateral damage of these decisions. Either mitigate them or rethink them," she first claimed in August 2024.

But the reality is that weakening the CLCPA will do nothing to lower energy bills - something the Governor herself is now admitting, describing her own narrative as "false":

"The false narrative is that I'm telling people their utility rates are higher because of the CLCPA. That would be a stupid thing to say, because it's not in effect yet."

The War in Iran is Driving Up Gas Prices - So Let's Double Down on Gas!

The Governor has recently suggested that the war in Iran is somehow cause for New York to weaken the state's Climate Law, and that doing so will "protect consumers" who are already suffering from higher energy bills:

"President Trump promised to lower energy prices, but instead, he and his administration have driven up costs for New Yorkers with illegal tariffs - and now they're driving up gas prices with the War in Iran. As Republicans in Congress ignore these gas price hikes, I'll keep working to tackle rising energy costs by protecting consumers, holding utility companies accountable and building more of the energy sources our state needs," the Governor stated in a press release just this week.

In response to rising gas prices, other countries including the United Kingdom, Spain, and Pakistan are instead investing in renewables to lower costs and achieve energy independence. Even red states have figured this out: states like Texas have way more renewables than New York, and it's not because renewables are better for the climate. It's because they're cheap.

Advocates' Lawsuit is Forcing My Hand!

As Governor Hochul continues manufacturing a CLCPA crisis, she misrepresents key points about the lawsuit brought against her administration for not implementing the law. Last week at an event hosted by Politico, Governor Hochul falsely stated that there is an April deadline to issue regulations under a court order, and that she will be forced to implement the extreme version of Cap & Invest conjured up in a recent NYSERDA memo:

"A judge is telling us that we have to comply with this even though we're not ready for it. And if we do that, I can tell you as sure as I'm standing here, our costs will go up dramatically. An upstate family that relies on natural gas and oil to heat their home will have to have their utility bills increased by roughly $4,000 by 2031."

Neither is true. The lawsuit does not force the state to actually achieve the 2030 limit - it just requires the state to take some action to try. The Governor is trying to misrepresent the lawsuit to manufacture a crisis she can benefit from, and ignoring that nothing in the court's order requires the scenario she has floated. If she is concerned about a future court ruling the plaintiffs have stated they are willing to work with the Governor to resolve the case:

"We have reached out to the Attorney General's office, and they are aware that we are interested in engaging in settlement conversations," said Rachel Spector, an attorney at Earthjustice, which is representing plaintiffs in the case.

The Climate Law Will Raise Future Energy Bills!

The Governor has repeatedly promised she wants to weaken the Climate Law to save New Yorkers' bills from spiraling even higher, pointing to a memo her own agency produced that baselessly claimed implementing the CLCPA could cost households thousands every year:

"For us to meet the goals on the time frame that was set by the legislature, there's going to be enormous costs to families. Enormous," she said in early March.

"All the goals we're supposed to meet would have to be met by 2030, 2031. That's not possible without prices going up," she repeated on March 16th.

The reality is that it will do the opposite, keeping New Yorkers hooked on increasingly volatile and expensive fracked gas while doing nothing to invest in cheaper, more reliable energy sources that are less susceptible to global shocks. The UK's independent climate advisory found that reaching net-zero would cost less than a single fossil fuel price shock.

According to New York Focus, the memo "offers limited new data" while "present[ing] a scenario that neither the Hochul administration nor Democrats in the legislature have entertained in recent years: one where New York relies almost entirely on a carbon price to meet the 2030 emissions target on time."

New York Focus notes "But the proposals that regulators outlined for cap and invest in 2024, before Hochul shelved them, were structured the other way around: They would have erred on the side of keeping carbon prices low and missing the legal emissions target, in the name of preserving affordability."

Lawmakers in her own caucus agree: Senate Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Pete Harckham undermined the Governor's suggestion, stating, "Yes we can address climate change, reduce costs for ratepayers, increase generation and create tens of thousands of good-pay jobs in the process... What we need is the political courage to do so."

As WE ACT for Environmental Justice's Eric Walker put it, "Doreen Harris is right about one thing: no one should implement the extreme, unrealistic scenario described in NYSERDA's memo. The cap-and-invest program outlined in NYSERDA's memo is a 'worst case scenario' and has none of the cost-containment tools that have made similar programs work across the country. We wouldn't support it either."