ALBANY — More than 100 local elected officials and nearly 200 youth organizations descended on the state Capitol on Wednesday to urge Gov. Kathy Hochul to include the Climate Change Superfund Act in her 2024 Executive Budget.
In all, the governor’s office was deluged by nearly 1,000 letters, some co-signed by several elected officials, stating, “Our communities are on the front lines of the climate crisis, bearing the full weight of its impacts,” according to the letter from Elected Officials to Protect America. “We need the state to act now to hold the biggest polluters accountable.”
The letter from the youth organizations stated: “New York state’s growing climate burden will grow from billions now to tens of billions by our middle age. Currently, New York taxpayers are footing the entire bill resulting from climate damages — rising sea levels, more intense storms, hotter temperatures, more pollution, etc. That is not fair to anyone today nor is it fair to future generations who will bear those mushrooming costs.”
More letters poured in from civic, environmental, labor, public health and religious organizations including 350Brooklyn, Climate Reality Project, Environmental Advocates NY, Food & Water Watch, Fridays for the Future Capital District, New York state Council of Churches, New York state Nurses Association, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Third Act Upstate New York and New York Public Interest Research Group.
“New York taxpayers are in a ‘perfect storm’ situation created by the devastating impacts of the escalating climate crisis and the huge costs faced to mount a response,” NYPIRG Executive Director Blair Horner said. “A growing number of New Yorkers expect Gov. Hochul to ease the climate burden by making sure that the largest climate polluters pick up a substantial portion of those costs and to do so in a manner that prohibits the companies from passing those costs on to the public.”
There is no need for taxpayers to be severely burdened with the total climate bill, which causes the most damage to small rural communities, a representative from Columbia County said Thursday.
“Municipalities are stuck footing the bill for climate-related damage and resilience project costs,” said Michael Hofmann, aide to Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson and member of the Hudson Valley Flood Resilience Network Advisory Committee. “Communities of all sizes across the state are directly impacted by climate change, but smaller towns, villages and cities like Hudson are hit even harder because of our limited resources and an already overburdened tax base. It is beyond time for fiscal fairness. Big Oil companies should pay their fair share.”
As severe climate events pile up, Gov. Hochul and the state legislature have kept the New York state Climate Act underfunded for years, said Michael Richardson of Valatie, co-facilitator with Third Act Upstate New York.
“The governor and the New York state Assembly have failed year after year to sufficiently fund our landmark New York state Climate Act,” Richardson said. “Given the immense cost of mitigating climate disruption, what has been done so far is too little and too late. Including the Climate Change Superfund Act in the governor’s budget will provide substantial annual payments toward funding repairs for climate-related damages and build new infrastructure to mitigate against future storms.”