Is Hochul a climate hero or a villain?

It’s New York City Climate Week, and Gov. Kathy Hochul is being hailed as a “climate superhero,” even as New York is on track to miss its climate goals, her congestion pricing pause remains divisive and lawmakers and advocates await her signature on the Climate Superfund Act and other legislation. 

Hero or villain?

Hochul joined fellow Govs. Jay Inslee of Washington and Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico to announce a new climate workforce initiative through the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan group of governors focused on environmental policy led by Hochul and Grisham. The alliance’s executive director Casey Katims called the three governors a “trio of fearless climate superheroes.” He praised New York, Washington and New Mexico as “showing the rest of America that climate action is good for our health, good for our economy and good for our communities,” which he said is “a credit to this trio of governors.”

But outside the Climate Week event, many New Yorkers don’t see her as the Iron Man to climate change’s Thanos. The praise heaped on the governor drew immediate ridicule from Hochul’s many climate critics. “If she wants to be a climate superhero, she needs to be bold and act in the public interest by moving forward with congestion pricing and adopting strong climate policies through executive action and in her upcoming (state) budget,” said Liz Moran, northeast policy advocate at Earthjustice. Moran faulted Hochul for her decision to pause congestion pricing and noted that the governor recently admitted that the state will not hit its climate benchmarks.

Supporters of congestion pricing quickly jumped on the “superhero” comparison in light of her pause. “We’d like a word,” the Riders Alliance wrote in a post on X. Ben Kabak, a transit advocate who posts from the “Second Ave. Sagas” handle on X, accused the U.S. Climate Alliance of having “the attention span of a toddler” and said that Hochul “is single-handedly responsible for holding up one of the ambitious climate change-related policies any U.S. city has tried to implement lately.” Supporters of the tolling program have sued Hochul and the state over the pause, and they’re set to make their case before a judge on Friday.

Hochul has defended her pause of congestion pricing pause as fiscally necessary, citing the $15 toll as too steep for New Yorkers still economically recovering from the pandemic. She has also consistently espoused her support for the environmental goals of congestion pricing to produce cleaner air, saying last month that she was “committed to ensuring that there are benefits for the people who live in those areas.” But she has not yet proposed an alternative to congestion pricing that would either reduce congestion or raise money necessary for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Lawmakers and advocates are still hopeful that the governor will sign the Climate Change Superfund Act, which would require fossil fuel-based companies to pay for the cost of projects to mitigate the effects of climate change. But business interests have pushed for Hochul to veto the bill, which was passed earlier this year. “Gov Hochul could be (a) climate ‘superhero’ by signing the Climate Change Superfund Act and make the polluters  – not taxpayers – cover NY’s expected billions in climate costs,” Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, wrote on X. 

With many of her controversial moves around climate policy, Hochul refers back to affordability for everyday New Yorkers, like in 2023, when she had even considered rewriting the state’s landmark 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

Climate goals out of reach

A July report from the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency and the state Public Service Department concluded that the state is not on pace to reach its statutory goal of 70% renewable energy by 2030. Shortly after that report came out, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office concluded that the state is not on track to hit other ambitious clean energy and climate goals. He blamed inadequate action from the Public Service Commission, a key state regulator that plays a large role in the state’s transition to clean energy. 

On Monday morning, preceding Hochul’s Climate Week remarks, DiNapoli credited the Public Service Commission for acknowledging its shortcomings and the governor for convening the Future Energy Economy Summit in Albany earlier this month. But he said that more must still be done. “We've got a lot of work to do if we're going to meet the goals of the Climate Act,” DiNapoli told City & State. “And at the rate we're going, we're not going to meet those goals, which means either they have to adjust the act, or – I'm not really sure what the alternative is.” He added that he would like to see the state figure out ways to expedite the siting and permitting processes for green energy projects, and “better managing the bureaucracy.” A number of major offshore wind projects long in the works got canned earlier this year, further affecting the state’s ability to hit its climate goals.

Some in the clean energy space are pitching nuclear energy as a long-term solution to remedy shortfalls in clean energy production in the state, and Hochul recently got on board with the plan. Some policy experts and advocates view her embrace of the controversial energy source as misguided, if not an abandonment of the state’s existing climate goals. Lawmakers in districts with their own storied nuclear pasts, like Senate Environmental Chair Peter Harckham, threw cold water on the idea immediately, citing cost and safety concerns.  

During her remarks on Monday, Hochul referenced her recent European climate tour where she made notable stops at the Vatican and Ireland. “I reflected for a long time on the words of Pope Francis (and) what he said,” Hochul told attendees. “He reminds us that our moral responsibility extends beyond borders. It extends beyond politics, that we must safeguard our natural environment but also our most vulnerable communities, the ones most endangered by climate change.” Infamously, congestion pricing supporters used the trip to frame her pause as an about-face, with some even calling it a betrayal.

Hochul’s office defended the governor’s track record on the environment in the face of criticism. Spokesperson Paul DeMichele said Hochul “implemented some of the nation's strongest actions on climate, including… advancing zero emission new construction, and making historic investments in large-scale renewable energy and transmission infrastructure.”  He also cited the $4.2 billion Environmental Bond Act, which voters approved in 2022.

DeMichele also pointed to parts of the state budget passed this year, including $500 million to improve clean water infrastructure and $400 million for the Environmental Protection Fund. (Hochul had originally pitched cutting the clean water infrastructure funding to $250 million annually before pressure from advocates led to the restoration of the $500 million annually in place since 2017.) “We're going to continue forging into a clean energy future to help protect our climate and our environment and we will continue our ongoing efforts to build a clean energy economy and tackle the climate crisis,” DeMichele said.

However, any praise she has received is tempered by an environmental community that doesn’t always view her as on their side, less Iron Man and more Hawkeye.