Did Hochul Approve Williams Pipeline To Help Husband's Firm?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, November 14, 2025

Did Hochul Approve Williams Pipeline To Help Husband’s Firm?

As Hochul projects hikes bills and poisons Rockaways, NY Times reveals financial connections

Albany, New York – The New York Times broke the disturbing news that Governor Kathy 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 Greenidge Crypto Mining Projects. The Governor approved these projects on Friday, in a flagrant violation of state climate law.

The Public Power NY Coalition released the following statement:

“While successful politicians fight for affordability, Hochul’s anti-climate crusade will only drive New Yorkers’ utility bills up. Whether this betrayal is due to personal corruption or orders from Trump, it’s not too late to lead by building 15 gigawatts of public renewables to protect our planet, lower energy bills, and create 25,000 green union jobs.”

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.” Crucially, the pipeline will also not increase supply of electricity, as the state’s gas plants have no shortage of gas. A corporate crypto mine will also increase bills and pollution while threatening reliability. This comes after Hochul has also falsely claimed renewable energy is the cause of unaffordable electric bills.

None of Hochul’s 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.

Following massive public outcry resulting in over 10,000 public comments from New Yorkers, amplified by elected officials like Zohran Mamdani, NYPA updated its strategic plan to implement BPRA this summer, doubling the amount of projects it plans to build from a paltry 3.3 GW to 7GW. If NYPA can add almost 4GW of renewables in just six months, it can add enough to get the state to 15GW by 2030. New York does not need poison pipelines, it needs public renewables.

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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.