Hochul Wants a Climate Reprieve

Praise be, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has seen a great light—or maybe heard that voters are irate about their winter heating bills. Lo, the Democratic Governor is seeking to walk back her state’s climate mandates because she says they will raise costs. Well, yes. And for her allies in the anti-fossil-fuel crowd, the pain is the point.

Ms. Hochul on Friday called on the Democratic Legislature to postpone implementation of the state’s cap-and-tax program and CO2 emissions cuts mandated by New York’s 2019 climate law. She warned that regulations could increase upstate utility bills by about $4,000 a year and gasoline prices by $2.23 a gallon.

“We need more time,” Ms. Hochul wrote in an op-ed in The Empire Report. “So much has radically changed since the Climate Act was enacted, necessitating common-sense adjustments.” She said inflation, President Trump’s tariffs, and the GOP tax bill’s phase down of federal renewable tax credits had increased costs of green energy projects.

She’s right about the first two, but New York’s climate diktats are painfully expensive regardless. Manufacturers would have to adopt costly, immature technologies like carbon capture. Gas power plants would be required to shut down prematurely in favor of higher-cost offshore wind and batteries.

Federal subsidies merely shifted the enormous costs of such policies to national taxpayers. Perhaps the reason Ms. Hochul is having second thoughts about cap-and-tax now is that the costs of the state’s other anti-fossil fuel policies—e.g., its blockade on natural gas pipelines—are starting to hit home for New Yorkers.

The average winter gas bill for New York City’s National Grid utility customers jumped 25% this year because demand and prices for natural gas soared amid frigid weather. Pipeline constraints have limited supply. Electric bills in New York City have increased by about 37% over the last five years because gas and nuclear plants have been forced to close.

But progressives want New Yorkers to pay even more. “It’s impossible to have a coherent debate about this if we’re not all first on the same page that a carbon price is designed to add costs to carbon-intensive energy uses, and that will add costs to consumers,” Columbia University climate researcher Noah Kaufman, a former Joe Biden hand, told the left-leaning Heatmap news site.

There you have it: The left’s goal is to raise costs to compel people to use less fossil-fuel energy. Ms. Hochul is trying to buy a reprieve as she faces re-election. But even if she succeeds, the climate lobby will hit New Yorkers harder again soon enough.