Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act

On July 18, 2019 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which establishes targets for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing renewable electricity production, and improving energy efficiency.  This page lists posts describing various aspects of this legislation.   

In addition to the technical articles on the Climate Act listed here, I have prepared a simpler summary designed to inform the general public about how expensive, risky, and intrusive it will be. 

CLCPA Targets

The Citizens Budget Commission developed an overview of the CLCPA targets in Green in Perspective: 6 Facts to Help New Yorkers Understand the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.  The goals of the law are truly aspirational:

Reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions:

      • Reduce GHG emissions to 60 percent of 1990 emissions levels in 2030;
      • Generate zero GHG emissions from electricity production by 2040; and
      • Ensure GHG emissions are less than 15 percent of 1990 emissions levels in 2050, with offsets to reduce net emissions to zero.
      • GHG offsets means that for every ton emitted into the air one ton is removed via GHG capture of some sort. For example, a company or individual can pay a landowner to leave trees standing that would otherwise be removed or plant additional trees to offset GHG emissions.

Increase renewable electricity:

    • Increase renewable sources to 70 percent by 2030; and

Develop or support:

    • 9 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind electric generation by 2035;
    • 6 GW of distributed photovoltaic solar generation by 2025; and
    • 3 GW of energy storage capacity by 2030.
    • Conserve 185 trillion British thermal units (TBTUs) of annual end-use energy use by 2025, of which at least 20 percent should be from energy efficiency improvements in disadvantaged communities.
    • The CLCPA also requires between 35 percent and 40 percent of spending on clean energy or efficiency programs be in disadvantaged communities and mandates an air monitoring program in at least four such communities.

This page lists all the posts on the CLCPA.  The links below categorize the posts for your information because there are so many.

Overview

These posts generally describe the CLCPA and its benefits.

Spring 2025 – Reasons to Pause the CLCPA

Links to recent articles that give reasons why it is in the best interest of New York to pause implementation until certain issues are resolved.

Feasibility

This law does not provide for an analysis to determine if it can be implemented affordably and with no impact on reliability.  Suffice to say that the lack of a feasibility study before picking the emission reduction and renewable energy targets makes for a target rich environment.

Implementation

This page describes projects that implement the Climate Act.  

Integration Analysis

The integration analysis develops scenarios from the advisory panel recommended strategies to support the Climate Action Council scoping plan.  This page lists posts addressing the integration analysis

New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act Costs

This page summarizes the results of my calculations of the observed costs of the environmental initiatives of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in general and the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in particular.  I also provide links to estimates by others outside the Administration as I find them.

I have also set up a scorecard that lists ratepayer impacts of Department of Public Service proceedings.

CLCPA Supporting Regulations

The CLCPA mandates regulations to support the implementation of the law.  This page provides links to my posts on those regulations.

CLCPA Scoping Plan Strategies

This page describes the implementation strategies proposed by the Climate Action Council advisory panels.

CLCPA Weather vs. Climate

The difference between weather and climate is constantly mistaken by Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) advocates.  This page references my evaluations of climatic effects that turned out to be weather events and examples by other authors.

Inconvenient Aspects of the CLCPA

Thomas Sowell points out differences between those on the right and left. According to Sowell, the left believes: “there is nothing in human nature that would cause us to be unhappy. It’s the fact that we have the wrong institutions.”  This as opposed to the right who believes: “Man is flawed from Day One, and that there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs. And whatever you do to deal with man’s flaws, it creates another problem.”  I believe this difference is also the same as that between environmental activists and pragmatists and leads to inconvenient aspects of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).

CLCPA Meeting Summaries

This page provides links to Climate Action Council and advisory panel meetings.

CLCPA Comments Submitted

This page provides links to the comments I submitted.

Accelerated Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act

This legislation provides expedited permitting for renewable energy developments.

CLCPA Posts