Hochul is stalling 'cap-and-invest' over cost concerns

And the Office of Cannabis Management wrote to dispensaries too close to schools Wednesday.

Good afternoon — it’s Wednesday and Farmworker Appreciation Day.

In today’s CapCon:

• Don’t expect New York’s cap-and-invest program to take off any time soon. Hochul said Wednesday she has cost concerns.

• The Office of Cannabis Management sent a memo to dispensaries too close to schools on Wednesday in an attempt to ease their concerns.

• The Public Campaign Finance Board has proposed regulations to implement legislative changes to the state’s public campaign finance system.

• Five years later, automatic voter registration regulations have now been adopted.

• Hochul soon will have to decide if the state will allow some judges to be shuffled into courts as a result of “Raise the Age.”

• Ambulances still have to pay tolls on the Thruway. Hochul could soon end that.

Names in today’s CapCon: Kathy Hochul, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Noah Burroughs, Felicia A. B. Reid, Luis Sepuvleda

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(Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

🔥 Hochul says cap-and-invest on back burner over cost concerns

Environmentalists were incensed earlier this year when Gov. Kathy Hochul punted on the state’s cap-and-invest program, which they had expected to come online this year.

That program would essentially set a price and cap on the amount of carbon emissions allowed from large-scale sources and distributors of heating and transportation fuels. Those companies would pay the state for permission to pollute.

That revenue would then be used to offset any increased energy costs that result from the program, fund strategies to encourage growth of renewable energy, and help small industrial businesses with utility expenses.

The program was born from the state’s long-term plan to reduce carbon emissions, which was approved in late 2022 by the Climate Action Council.

Hochul then announced in early 2023 that she had directed the state Department of Environmental Conservation to advance the program, which requires the agency to promulgate and adopt regulations on its administration.

Supporters of the program — including environmental advocates and state lawmakers — were thrilled it was moving forward. But two years later, nothing had materialized.

That brought us to this January, when advocates and lawmakers were eager to hear Hochul detail the program. The required regulations were reportedly ready.

Hochul instead included little more than a footnote in her State of the State book, indicating that recommendations for the program weren’t expected until the end of this year. Advocates and lawmakers were not happy.

Hochul on Wednesday (New York Governor’s Office)

🗣️ What Hochul said on cap-and-invest Wednesday

They may be even less happy to find out what Hochul said to reporters Wednesday about the status of cap-and-invest, for which the state has started to craft one of the three anticipated regulations.

“There’s many ways to approach the whole issue of how we deal with protecting our environment. I will continue to lead that effort and cap-and-invest has been a tool,” Hochul said.

“But I also can not ignore the fact that the disruptions in our economy that have occurred since the laws went into place, and also since we even supported this, need to be examined in terms of what is happening to people’s pocketbooks right now,” she continued.