New York "Climate" Policy Approaching The Cliff

For a few years now, it has been blindingly obvious that New York had over-promised and over-committed on impossible “climate” goals that could not be achieved.  In various posts I have referred to this as an approaching “cliff,” or perhaps as the “green energy wall.”  It has been entertaining to ponder what the final disaster might look like.

This week has had a lot of developments.  Most interesting is the growing split among the governing Democrats between, on the one hand, those who see disaster coming and are looking for some kind of graceful exit and, on the other hand, those pushing full speed ahead to go over the cliff.  It may already be too late for New York to have any graceful exit from its self-inflicted predicament.  Nevertheless, my official position is that I am advocating for New York to take the most graceful possible exit while it still can.  But I have to admit that secretly I am hoping for the most aggressive advocates to get their way and take New York over the cliff.  Hey, I’ll wait out the blackouts somewhere else, and maybe a critical mass of the voters will finally wake up.

So let me just give you some straight reporting on the latest developments.  

As background, we are in the thick of budget season in New York State, with a final budget due to be enacted by April 1.  The Governor is in the midst of negotiations with the two houses of the State Legislature.  In recent years it has become common for the most important legislation in the year to get wrapped somehow into the budget; and the legislative situation with respect to “climate” mandates is undoubtedly important.  So while it might at first seem that climate and energy legislation is extraneous to the budget, it is now inherently a part of the budget process.