FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 14, 2025
Contact: Lee Ziesche, info@publicpowerny.org, 954-415-6228
Statement on Hochul’s NYPA Renewables Announcement
Hochul defies thousands of New Yorkers & largest labor unions with less than 5% of renewables needed
New York is about to capitulate to Donald Trump’s catastrophic anti-climate agenda before he even enters office by failing our own 2030 climate goals. We will fail for one reason: Governor Hochul and Justin Driscoll’s refusal to build the 15 gigawatts(GW) of public renewables it will take to meet our goals.
Today, Hochul had the chance to call on the New York Power Authority to build the full 15 GW instead of sticking to a widely-panned plan to build just 3.5 GW. Instead, as reported in Politico, she will announce contracts for just .5 GW, which may or may not even be new projects. On renewables, Hochul is not doing the bare minimum, she’s doing less than 5% of the bare minimum.
With the New York Power Authority’s final renewables plan due Jan 31st, it’s not too late for Hochul to commit to the 15 GW called for by the state AFL-CIO and Building Trades Council, the American Lung Association, and 5322 New Yorkers, whose public comments NYPA claims to have lost in a spam folder, and has yet to acknowledge to the public.
With a climate denier headed back to the White House, New York must lead the way New Yorkers overwhelmingly demand. Instead of heading towards 2030 as a national laughingstock, we can be the state that built green economic populism by creating 25,000 green union jobs, lowering electricity bills, and becoming a climate model not even Trump could stop. Hochul and Driscoll must revise their paltry 3.5 GW plan to the 15 GW–including 5 GW in NYC–that it will take to do it.
About Public Power NY
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.