Kathy Hochul Signs A Bill to Institutionalize Climate Lawfare. It's Pure Demagoguery and But Cover for What She Must Do.

Kathy Hochul has to be America’s worst governor at the moment. She has opted to enact an absolutely ludicrous law, except that it’s not if you’re running a state where demagoguery is the order of every day and you know it’s only the virtue signaling that counts and not the outcome.

Hochul just announced the following:

Governor Kathy Hochul today signed landmark legislation to bolster New York’s efforts to protect and restore the environment by requiring large fossil fuel companies to pay for critical projects that protect New Yorkers. Legislation S.2129-B/A.3351-B creates a ‘Climate Superfund’ to support New York-based projects that bolster New York’s resiliency to dangerous climate impacts like flooding and extreme heat.

“With nearly every record rainfall, heatwave, and coastal storm, New Yorkers are increasingly burdened with billions of dollars in health, safety, and environmental consequences due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment,” Governor Hochul said. “Establishing the Climate Superfund is the latest example of my administration taking action to hold polluters responsible for the damage done to our environment and requiring major investments in infrastructure and other projects critical to protecting our communities and economy.”

This landmark legislation shifts the cost of climate adaptation from everyday New Yorkers to the fossil fuel companies most responsible for the pollution. By creating a Climate Change Adaptation Cost Recovery Program, this law ensures that these companies contribute to the funding of critical infrastructure investments, such as coastal protection and flood mitigation systems, to enhance the climate resilience of communities across the state…

New York State's climate agenda calls for an affordable and just transition to a clean energy economy that creates family-sustaining jobs, promotes economic growth through green investments, and directs a minimum of 35 percent of the benefits to disadvantaged communities. New York is advancing a suite of efforts to achieve an emissions-free economy by 2050, including in the energy, buildings, transportation, and waste sectors.

Amidst the news release, but left out above, are a long list of endorsements of the cation by sycophants, Rockefeller-family-controlled or enabled NGOs, and lawmakers who were used to construct the narrative. They’re the same folks who applauded Hochul’s CO2 fracking ban a few days ago, which got a short repeat blast in this news release.

What this all tells us is that this was a Hochul two-fer intended to send a message to the NRDC gang and friends (the Rockefellers) that she is dutifully doing their bidding. They have real power to make her do so, of course, and she complied. But, isn’t it interesting she did it during Christmas week when only the passionate special interests were paying attention? Somehow, I suspect that’s anything but accidental.

No, I think this was strategic. Hochul, like Cuomo, has no real philosophy that she can’t or won’t change on a dime when it’s advantageous to do so. Moreover, she knows this legislation is unenforceable, nonsensical, and likely to be thrown out by the US Supreme Court at some point. She just wants the short-term gains from demagoguing the issue and couldn’t care less what ultimately happens.

She also knows she needs cover for what will certainly happen before she hopes to leave the Governor’s office in 6-10 years. She will be facing a drastic energy shortage that no amount of breezes and sunshine can ever remedy. She will need nuclear energy faster than it can be developed, and she’ll be forced to accept more natural gas, which means more pipeline capacity if not homegrown natural gas development.

How can it be accomplished and reconciled with the above? The courts will help and she’ll be able to blame much of her change in position on them. She might also be able to blame Donald Trump, given that he’ll undoubtedly being taking steps to ensure energy projects proceed without delay via nuisance lawsuits and corrupt DEC maneuvers. Hochul will just say ‘he made me do it.”

And, there is another possibility raised yesterday by one of our commenters. Indeed, it’s one already used in another context. It is legalized gaming, which came to New York via arrangements with Native American tribes who have major landholdings and even bigger claims to Upstate New York. They can operate outside of Hochul’s ridiculous rules as separate nations and might even be quietly encouraged to do so.

Can’t you just imagine the Oneida, Cayuga or Onondaga Nations working with an electricity company to put a natural-gas-fueled power plant somewhere near Planet Ithaca? Or, the Senaca Nation fracking up a storm along the Southern Tier? Bring it on! Kathy needs you, although she’ll never admit it, of course, but that’s not necessary.

#Hochul #Climate #ClimateSuperfund #Lawfare #NRDC #Rockefellers #TribalNations #Fracking