Memo: Governor Hochul’s Climate Law Delays 
Will Cost New Yorkers Nearly $9K in Energy Bills Over 5 Years

Roughly 150,000 jobs will be lost statewide

Between $15 and $60 billion will be lost in local revenue 

Introduction:

March 26, 2026 —Last week, Governor Hochul announced her proposal to weaken New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the state’s landmark Climate Law, by postponing the release of regulations to implement the law to 2030. A new memo by NY Renews shows that the cumulative costs of delaying climate action by half a decade will cost New Yorkers thousands on their energy bills, stifle job creation, and result in preventable hospitalizations and premature deaths. 

After the Climate Law passed in 2019, New York embraced cap and invest as the primary means of implementing the law, a tried-and-true policy that charges polluters for their pollution and reinvests the revenue procured. In New York, the distribution of cap and invest revenue is legally mandated: a third goes directly back to households in the form of direct rebates to lower energy bills, resulting in many low- and moderate-income households saving thousands of dollars. 

At least 35% of New York’s investment from cap and invest must be directed to communities overburdened by pollution and worsening climate impacts. If done well, remaining revenue can also be directed to community development, such as public transportation and increasing green spaces, building out thermal energy networks, community solar, installing heat pumps, weatherizing and electrifying homes, and expanding EV charging networks. 

How much will Governor Hochul's proposal to delay progress on the Climate Law cost New Yorkers over the next five years? Analysis from NY Renews reveals the following: 

Household Energy Bills

Jobs Lost

  • New York will lose 30,000 jobs each year, or a total of 150,000 jobs, that would have been created by full implementation of the climate law via cap and invest. 

  • This includes the following number of regional jobs lost across the state:

    • New York City — 9,834 jobs lost

    • Western New York — 7,341 jobs lost

    • Capital Region — 1,641 jobs lost

    • Long Island — 4,363 lost

    • Central New York — 1,150 jobs lost

    • The Mid-Hudson Valley — 3,304 jobs lost

Premature Deaths

  • Close to 5,000 New Yorkers will die prematurely, 50% of whom live in disadvantaged communities.

Hospitalizations

  • Climate law delays will lead to more than 4,000 asthma hospitalizations. 

  • This would also contribute to more than $3.4 billion in statewide healthcare expenditures annually from hospital visits for respiratory and cardiovascular disease each year. 

Local Revenue

  • New Yorkers will lose between $15 and 60 billion dollars of revenue that would have been invested in communities for things like green, affordable housing (weatherization, insulation, home improvement), rooftop solar, electric buses, thermal energy networks, community energy planning, community solar, and infrastructure and resiliency projects.

  • Between $5-21 billion of those losses would have been earmarked for disadvantaged communities across the state.

Note: Sources not easily accessible online can be found here.