As Williams Fracked Gas Pipeline Breaks Ground, Hochul Breaks Law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, April 14, 2026

As Williams Fracked Gas Pipeline Breaks Ground, Hochul Breaks Law

Instead of Public Renewables, Hochul chooses Trump project that will hike bills and poison Rockaways, while husband’s firm benefits

Brooklyn, New York – The Trump administration celebrated the groundbreaking of the widely opposed Williams NESE fracked gas pipeline today in Brooklyn. Governor Kathy Hochul violated the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) when she approved the pipeline for Trump last year, which she openly admitted today after a judge found her in violation last year.

The New York Times broke the disturbing news that Hochul’s husband makes nearly $1 million a year at Davis Polk, the law firm representing owners of the costly and unpopular Williams Pipeline and Greenridge Crypto Mining Projects.

None of Hochul’s “all of the above” energy decisions make sense since New York passed the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA) in 2023, which authorizes the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to build and own enough renewable energy projects to meet the state’s climate mandates. NYPA needs to build 15GW of public renewables for the state to reach 70% renewable by 2030.

Alex Patterson, Campaign Coordinator for Public Power NY, said: “The Hochul-Trump Pipeline will raise bills and temperatures to enrich Hochul-Trump donors.The Williams Pipeline is a climate and affordability disaster and only makes sense when you learn about how those close to Hochul will benefit. The Governor is desperate to change New York’s nation leading climate law because she’s currently violating it. There is only one solution to lower bills for New Yorkers and meet the state’s climate mandates: building 15GW of public renewables.”

The Williams NESE Pipeline was denied three times due to concerns over its threat to water safety in the Rockaways, and will raise National Grid bills nearly $100 a year, flying in the face of Hochul’s rhetoric around “affordability.”

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Note to the editor:

About Public Power NY
As chronicled in the new book “Organize or Burn.” Public Power NY is a movement fighting to ensure New York effectively carries out the Build Public Renewables Act by building 15 Gigawatts of public renewables by 2030. Hailed as the first statewide Green New Deal law, BPRA was written by PPNY and passed in 2023 thanks to four years of organizing by a multiracial, multi-generational movement of climate and advocacy organizations, labor unions representing millions of New Yorkers and tens of thousands of New Yorkers who have taken action from upstate, downstate, and everywhere in between. With federal climate action off the table, BPRA has enabled NY to not just play defense against Trump, but lead the way the way FDR created NYPA to do.