By Rick Karlin | Times Union, Albany (TNS)
Albany — On Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul will release her first full-year budget proposal for fiscal year 2023-24.
The governor’s budget proposal is an annual event at the Capitol and marks the actual beginning of this year’s legislative session. It will be closely watched by a variety of actors, from activists to lobbyists to lawmakers and business groups, who will also seek to influence Senate and Assembly budget proposals. Horse-trading between all three will then lead to a state budget, hopefully by the April 1st deadline.
This year, the budget will be of particular interest to environmentalists, climate activists and those working in the growing clean energy space for a number of reasons.
In November, New York voters approved a $4.2 billion green bond bill. In addition, this is the year when legislators and lawyers and experts from state agencies are preparing the laws and regulations to achieve the targets for reducing carbon emissions set out in the Climate Change Act 2019.
With that in mind, here are some of the budget components to look out for in the areas of climate, environment and energy.
bond law
The $4.2 billion Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act will not come all at once. As with other bond legislation, the state will raise money through a series of bond sales over time in the coming years. It will help fund flood risk prevention, clean water, open spaces and emissions reduction.
However, preparing for this spending requires hiring in government agencies and other planning, all of which costs money and could be reflected in the budget. Incidentally, this spending may ultimately be funded by Bond Act funds.
“They really need to think about how they’re managing the program,” said Jessica Ottney Mahar, policy and strategy director of The Nature Conservancy in New York.
Environmental Protection Fund
This fund grew from $300 million to $400 million last year and is expected not to shrink and could grow. Among other things, it pays for the protection of open spaces, park landscapes and the remediation of pollutants.
Clean water
Hochul has called for $500 million in new funding for the Clean Water Infrastructure Act. This helps utility companies upgrade aging water systems. Environmental Advocates NY believes the amount should be increased to $1 billion given the need for toxic PFAS cleanups and hundreds of thousands of lead pipes still in service across the state.
“Demand from local governments for Clean Water Infrastructure Act grants is tremendous,” said Brian Keegan, spokesman for Environmental Advocates.
Additionally, Environmental Advocates wants $1 million in the budget for the Public Service Commission to collect data on how many people across the state are at risk of losing or have lost access to water.
While numbers are known about how many people are at risk of power cuts, the same is not the case for water bills.
electrification of buildings
This is an important point as it is seen as key to achieving the goal of a zero-carbon economy by 2050. Heating and cooling buildings from sources such as natural gas or oil are major contributors to greenhouse gases.
There are already a number of draft laws that aim to phase out new domestic gas connections in favor of technologies such as electrically powered heat exchangers or geothermal heat pumps. But installing this new equipment will be costly, and that’s where the state budget comes in.
In addition to subsidies, including from the federal government, advocates hope for tax breaks to promote electrification.
This could include sales tax exemptions for upgrades such as heat pumps and battery storage systems, which would store electricity generated by solar and wind farms on sunny and windy days.
“I hope those things are in there,” said Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy, which represents alternative energy companies.
Her group also reiterates a call, now several years old, to allow more direct sales of electric vehicles like Tesla and Rivian that don’t go through traditional car dealership networks.
They see it as a way to boost electric vehicle sales, another tactic to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
cap and invest
A key component of carbon reduction will be based on a cap and invest plan. This is essentially a carbon tax imposed on companies based on emissions and emission reduction targets. The money from this cap goes to emission reduction programs.
Rules for this program will be made this year.
Although it is unlikely that funds will be generated in the coming year, Ottney Mahar said the budget could contain statements on how this program will be developed in the future.
All of these requests come amid an uncertain economy that Hochul may need to consider when creating a budget. They also come at a time when a broad coalition of environmental activists is calling for the state to allocate $10 billion to fight climate change.
The total budget for the current year is around 220 billion US dollars.
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