Protesters Rally Against Climate Law Delays

To counter the governor’s affordability argument, the environmental coalition NY Renews released a memo Thursday morning outlining some costs of delaying cap-and-invest. They projected up to $60 billion in lost local revenue and 150,000 jobs lost statewide, calculating that households making below $200,000 a year would miss out on over $8,530 in direct energy rebates.

The memo also highlighted the public health impact, predicting almost 5,000 premature deaths and over 4,000 asthma hospitalizations linked to continued pollution, creating $3.4 billion in statewide healthcare expenses. They argued that half of those premature deaths and as much as $21 billion of the lost revenues would directly impact poor and nonwhite communities.

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