FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 27, 2026
Contact: Chris Dobens, 718-679-8542, chris@weact.org
ALBANY, NY – Having advocated for an equitable cap and invest program that would require the big businesses polluting our air to pay for the investment needed to meet New York State’s pollution reduction goals mandated by its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), WE ACT for Environmental Justice’s Energy Justice Senior Policy Manager Eric Walker reviewed the memo released by New York State Energy Research and Development Agency’s (NYSERDA) President and CEO Doreen Harris and issued the following statement:
“Doreen Harris is right about one thing: no one should implement the extreme, unrealistic scenario described in NYSERDA’s memo. The cap-and-invest program outlined in NYSERDA’s memo is a ‘worst case scenario’ and has none of the cost-containment tools that have made similar programs work across the country. We wouldn’t support it either. But the program outlined in the memo is not the program NYSERDA spent nearly two years developing and promoting. The NYSERDA memo is a red herring.
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul inexplicably shelved that program despite the state’s own analysis showing most households coming out ahead. We are a community-based organization representing families in what the state describes as disadvantaged communities. They have been waiting the longest for relief from both high bills and polluted air, and they have been paying the highest price in both financial and public health terms – spending a disproportionate amount of their household income on energy costs and burdened with greater adverse health impacts from disproportionate exposure to air pollution. The state is dramatically behind nearly every goal of the transition to clean energy mandated by the CLCPA, yet our energy bills have been steadily increasing. New Yorkers know that it’s not clean energy to blame for the high cost of energy, but rather utility infrastructure investments that utility companies make where every dollar spent on infrastructure becomes a guaranteed return, paid for by customers already struggling to keep the lights on. That guaranteed return is driving billions in profits for companies like Con Edison.
Gutting the CLCPA today and continuing to delay the implementation of an equitable and common-sense cap-and-invest program won’t lower a single New Yorker’s energy bill. And in the wake of the Trump administration’s gutting of federal clean air protections, New York cannot afford to retreat or sacrifice the energy savings and health benefits a well-designed cap-and-invest program would deliver to millions of New Yorkers.
The conversation our leaders in Albany should be having is how to uphold the CLCPA and urgently advance a well-designed program that protects environmental justice communities, creates union jobs, and delivers real affordability to the households and small businesses that need it most.”
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WE ACT for Environmental Justice is a Northern Manhattan-based, membership-driven organization whose mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and/or low-income residents are meaningfully included in the development of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices. WE ACT has offices in New York and Washington, D.C. Visit us at weact.org and follow us on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram. WE ACT’s legislative priorities are detailed in our 2026 Policy Agenda.