Albany, NY — Governor Hochul and legislative leaders are set to release a final 2024-2025 state budget, without two key priorities of the state’s climate movement, the NY HEAT Act and the Climate Change Superfund Act, after Speaker Heastie reportedly killed them in budget negotiations this week.

In response, Food & Water Watch Senior New York Organizer Laura Shindell, released the following statement:

“New York’s budget is set to fail on climate. Speaker Heastie and his Assembly colleagues abdicated their responsibility to protect New Yorkers by refusing to pass the NY HEAT Act and Climate Change Superfund Act in the budget. Instead, Heastie and the Assembly sided with polluters over people, locking New Yorkers into a future with more dangerous fossil fuels, expensive climate chaos, and skyrocketing energy bills.

“We call on Speaker Heastie to join the Senate in passing the NY HEAT Act and Climate Change Superfund Act immediately. We can’t wait another year to get these done.”

The NY HEAT Act eliminates the 100 foot rule and obligation to serve, which require utility customers to finance new gas lines; and directs the state to cap energy bills at six percent of household income, in line with state and federal standards for energy burden. The NY HEAT Act is expected to cut bills nearly in half for 1 in 4 energy burdened New Yorkers.

The Climate Change Superfund Act makes Big Oil companies help foot the skyrocketing bill for climate change and resiliency, currently borne by local governments and state taxpayers. In 2023, New York taxpayers paid $2.1 billion for climate repair and resiliency efforts; the Climate Change Superfund Act would raise $3 billion annually from the state’s largest oil and gas polluters.

Time to face it —~it’s people or plastics.~We can’t have both.

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