FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Contact: info@publicpowerny.org

Assembly Budget Champions $200 Million for Public Renewables

While Hochul tries to gut climate law, NY legislators support only solution to energy affordability and climate crises   

Albany, New York – To address the energy affordability crisis, the New York State Assembly included $200 million to build public renewables in their one-house budget proposal, along with a two year freeze on utility rate hikes. The move comes as Governor Kathy Hochul attempts to use budget negotiations to gut the state’s nation leading climate law. 

New York is perilously behind on meeting the legally mandated targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which require the state to be at 70% renewable energy by 2030. Thousands of New Yorkers and elected officials, like Zohran Mamdani, have called on Hochul’s NYPA to build the 15 gigawatts(GW) of public renewables necessary for the state to meet CLCPA targets and lower energy bills. 

But instead of leading the nation, Hochul’s NYPA is backtracking on its strategic plan to implement the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA), approving a costly 1.5GW cut to the amount of renewables it plans to build. The CEO of NYPA, Justin Driscoll, recently testified at a budget hearing that “more funds, more equity” would result in “more projects” being built. 

Alex Patterson, Campaign Coordinator for Public Power NY, said: “Governor Kathy Hochul’s budget proposal and energy plan is a gift to her billionaire donors that will continue to send New Yorkers’ bills skyrocketing by doubling down on expensive and polluting fracked gas and nuclear energy. The New York Assembly however is listening to the people of New York and putting money towards the only real solution: public renewables.”

A newly introduced bill, the Public Power Democracy Act (S8610/A9456), introduced by Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha would expand the NYPA board of trustees to 17 so it has the expertise necessary to meet its expanded role under the BRPA.  

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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.