A recent television advertisement by the Spring Street Climate Fund and statements by advocacy organizations are malinformation. Facts are presented selectively or out of context—to mislead the public and discredit those who are suggesting that changes to the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) interim targets are necessary. This post is a quick rebuttal.
I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. I acknowledge the use of Perplexity AI to generate an outline and draft of this article.
Overview
The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the 2022 Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In 2025, the State Energy Planning Board approved the 2025 Energy Plan that “provides broad program and policy development direction to guide energy-related decision making “. Neither document provided a complete, transparent accounting of the total costs to achieve the Climate Act mandates or a feasibility analysis that demonstrated that the proposed dependency on renewable energy would provide safe and adequate electricity.
Bowing to reality, facing judicial mandates, and supporting campaign’s energy affordability agenda Governor Hochul’s has recommended changes to the Climate Act that could be implemented in this year’s budget bill. In February the Hochul Administration “leaked” a New York Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) memo that said that “full compliance with New York’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act could cost upstate households more than $4,000 a year – on top of what they are already paying today”. She is using this as the primary driver for changes to the proposed economy-wide New York Cap-and-Invest (NYCI) regulations that will make the program “affordable”. Rory Christian, Chair and CEO of the Public Service Commission (PSC) recently posted a brief status update regarding the Commission’s ability to make changes to the Climate Act related to the Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy’s petition to hold a hearing to determine whether Public Service Law 66-P Renewable Energy Program obligations impede safe, adequate, and affordable electric service. She has not acknowledged that sooner or later the enormous costs that have been so far covered up will become common knowledge or the extensive reliability concerns expressed by the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO).
Response to Hochul’s Recommendation
To no one’s surprise, advocacy organizations have responded negatively to the recommendations. The Spring Street Climate Fund has released a new response video that will be the focus of this post. New York Public Interest Group has their own video. Another example came from the Nature Conservancy, the New York League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Advocates NY, the Environmental Defense Fund and WE ACT for Environmental Justice who released a joint statement condemning the proposal to amend the Climate Act:
The Governor’s proposal to amend the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act as reported is not acceptable. It will not maintain New York’s climate leadership, reduce energy bills, or protect the communities the law was intended to serve. We can and must do better. New Yorkers can’t afford to wait another four years for action. We urge the Legislature to keep fighting for a strong, enforceable Climate Law, including a robust near-term cap-and-invest program.
This post addresses the Spring Street Climate Fund video because it encapsulates most of my problems with the advocacy arguments. The text of the video states:
New York passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Landmark legislation moving us to clean, more affordable renewable energy.
Now special interests are trying to kill it, spending nearly $20 million to protect their profits. All at your expense.
Renewable clean energy means stable costs for ratepayers and less dependence on oil and gas. They know it. That’s why they’re fighting so hard.
Tell the legislature. Say no to Governor Hochul’s roll backs. Protect clean energy now.
I am troubled by these arguments for several reasons. The special interests of the advocates like the Spring Street Climate Fund are ignored. The mantra that renewable energy is clean and more affordable does not stand up to scrutiny. Finally, the reliability of a renewable energy based electric system has not been proven.
Who is Spring Street Climate Fund?
Spring Street Climate Fund is a small Brooklyn-based advocacy outfit that exists to “win scalable climate policy solutions in New York State,” explicitly by running campaigns to pass laws like NY HEAT, enforce Local Law 97, and mandate fossil‑free buildings. New Yorkers are being sold a story in their ad that does not compare well with actual Climate Act implementation experience or New York’s wholesale power and rate data. The fund’s own campaigns and donor base make clear it is an advocacy vehicle for expanding electrification mandates and cost-shifting subsidies, not a neutral source on “affordability.”
It operates as a “force multiplier” for the climate movement, channeling foundation money (Park Foundation, Seed Fund, Lily Auchincloss, etc.) into pressure campaigns on legislators, not as a consumer or ratepayer watchdog. In other words, this ad is financed by organizations whose business model is to pass more mandates and subsidies and then point to those very policies as “proof” of climate progress and affordability.
“Clean, more affordable renewable energy” claim
The ad asserts that the Climate Act is “moving us to clean, more affordable renewable energy,” with the clear implication that electric bills will go down as wind, solar, storage and building electrification scale up. That framing conflicts with both Climate Act cost analyses and New York’s real‑world experience with high-renewable policy packages.
Independent reporting on the Climate Act debate notes that NYSERDA’s own memo to the Governor projected that an “aggressive cap-and-invest program” layered onto the Climate Act would increase energy bills by thousands of dollars for New Yorkers by 2031, even before full system decarbonization is achieved.
The response from Spring Street and their ilk was not to demonstrate how lower system costs have been achieved elsewhere espite the enormous total cost. Instead they counter‑report using modeled “benefits” and rebate flows (cash recycling), which is an accounting exercise that tells you where the money goes, not whether the underlying energy system is cheaper.
I have distinguished between: System cost (capital, integration, reliability, transmission, backup, etc.), which rises as intermittent capacity and electrification mandates grow; and bill optics temporarily softened by ratepayer or taxpayer-funded subsidies, which advocacy groups then market as “savings.”
The Spring Street ad erases that distinction by implying that because some households might receive rebates or weatherization grants under a cap‑and‑invest framework, the underlying renewable system is “more affordable,” even though New York’s own agencies have conceded serious cost and feasibility challenges in meeting Climate Act timelines.
“Stable costs” and volatility reality
The ad further claims that “renewable clean energy means stable costs for ratepayers and less dependence on oil and gas,” suggesting that more solar, wind and electrification will smooth bills and insulate New Yorkers from price spikes. That is a textbook half‑truth that ignores how a high-renewable grid in a cold‑climate, winter‑peaking state actually works.
Advocacy aligned with Spring Street has been forced to acknowledge that Governor Hochul’s own climate team is now openly conceding that Climate Act benchmarks (like a 40% emissions reduction by 2030) are not on track and that some compliance pathways would be “too costly” for New Yorkers. That admission alone contradicts the ad’s breezy reference to “stable costs” from renewables, because if the transition were genuinely stabilizing prices, the Governor would not be seeking “rollbacks” in the name of affordability.
Moreover: Spring Street’s preferred policies—NY HEAT, forced building electrification, Local Law 97 enforcement—deliberately eliminate diversified fuel options, increasing dependence on a weather‑sensitive electric system backed by expensive capacity, storage, and transmission projects that must still be paid for, whether or not the wind is blowing. Their own promotional materials emphasize big new spending: billions in building retrofits, HVAC replacements, and “significant state subsidies” to make the transition palatable, which is the opposite of an inherently stable, low‑cost resource base.
In practice, your body of work has shown that:
As renewable penetration rises, the marginal cost of the next megawatt of “firm” reliability (dual‑fuel units, storage, transmission, or thermal backup) climbs, producing more—not less—volatility risk tied to weather, policy decisions, and capacity adequacy. The Climate Act implementation path under discussion shifts volatility from fuel commodity prices to capital‑recovery and policy risk: long‑lived assets whose costs must be recovered regardless of actual utilization. Calling that “stable costs” because the fuel input is free is exactly the kind of superficial messaging espoused the loud voices criticizing any change to the Climate Act.
Who is really “spending to protect profits”?
The ad accuses unnamed “special interests” of spending nearly $20 million “to protect their profits,” while presenting Spring Street as the defender of ordinary ratepayers. A quick look at their activities and funders shows that the line between “public interest” and self‑interested climate advocacy is far blurrier than the spot suggests. Spring Street funds and coordinates campaigns that increase the volume of public and private capital flowing into electrification, building retrofits, and grid projects whose beneficiaries include equipment manufacturers, developers, and service providers aligned with the climate‑policy ecosystem. The fund itself is capitalized by foundations with stated environmental agendas, and its campaigns are explicitly designed to “hold elected leaders accountable” for passing more climate mandates, not to rigorously vet cost and reliability trade‑offs.
The Climate Act has created competing special‑interest coalitions:
- Traditional fuel interests trying to preserve revenue streams and infrastructure value.
- Policy, NGO, developer, and foundation‑funded interests seeking to expand subsidized climate programs, often with guaranteed cost recovery or contracted revenue backed by ratepayers or taxpayers.
- The electric utilities deserve their special-interest designation. They know how much this is going to cost and they know it will degrade safe and adequate service but have stopped standing up to the State of New York on behalf of their ratepayers in pursuit of profits.
In my opinion, there is no special-interest coalition standing up for New York citizens first and foremost.
Conclusion
The organizations critical of any changes to the Climate Act sit firmly in the second camp of special interests. When any of them complain about “millions” in spending on the other side, they are essentially asking New Yorkers to prefer one set of profit motives over another, under the guise that only its favored policies are in the public interest. Furthermore, those organizations are presenting facts selectively or out of context to discredit the reality that the net-zero transition needs to be paused to assess what we have learned since 2019 and figure out to fix the flaws in the Climate Act. New York will face a grim future if those special interests maintain their grip on the legislative majority who are the only ones who can fix this mess.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 