By David Wojick
New York Governor Hochul says the emission reduction regulations required by the Climate Act are infeasible and ruinously expensive. She has yet to explain this, so here is my simple assessment.
The regulatory program has two very different mechanisms. First, they ration your fossil fuels. Then, they tax you heavily on the ration you get. The rationing is infeasible; the tax is ruinous.
The program is called “cap and invest,” which sounds good. Note the missing word: “tax.” You need the tax to get the money to “invest.” An honest name is “cap, tax, and spend.”
The cap is the amount of each type of fossil fuel that can be sold to consumers during a given period. Permissions to sell this amount are called allowances and they cost money.
Here is how the Cap and Invest website explains it. (There is almost no other information.)
“The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) are designing a program that sets an annual cap on the amount of greenhouse gas pollution that is permitted to be emitted in New York. Under the program, large-scale greenhouse gas emissions sources and distributors of heating and transportation fuels will be required to purchase or obtain allowances for the emissions associated with their activities.”
The cap is the ration, and the allowances are the ration tickets that have to be bought. Note that for heating and transportation fuels the distributor, not the consumer, buys the allowances. Of course, these costs will be passed on to the consumers. We are mostly talking about gasoline and diesel for transportation, fuel oil for heating, and gas for heating and cooking.
Let’s just look at the cap. These fuels are all essential for living, which make rationing a very bad plan. The rationing cap has to quickly come down and a lot under the Climate Act. Statewide emissions have to come down by a whopping 30% by 2030, just four years away.
Fuel use may have to come down even more because other emissions cannot be reduced that much. New York has provided no information about this looming threat, and there is no time to implement new technologies.
Rationing by definition creates shortages, because it means people get less than they would otherwise use. Let’s take home heating fuel oil as a simple case. About 20% of New York homes heat with fuel oil.
Say you live in one of these homes. Your fuel oil supplier has bought allowances for the coming year, and you get a share of that oil. But thanks to the cap, it is less than you burned keeping warm last year. How low will you have to turn your thermostat in order to get through the year on that much oil?
There is no way to know, because it depends on how cold it gets. If it is cold, you might run out of your allowed share in mid-December. Then what? The program is silent on this life-threatening question.
Moreover, if it is a cold year, then most people might run out of heating oil in winter. Heck of a Christmas that would be.
The same is true for gas heat but at a much larger scale, since most New York buildings are heated with natural gas. You cannot just suddenly use a lot less gas with a fixed amount allowed. It is a prescription for running out of heat in winter. This fiasco also applies in more complex ways to cars, trucks, and electricity.
Clearly capping fuel use is infeasible. Energy is fundamental to our way of life.
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tax the rations
Orwell for political repression and for the lumpen masses? The Beatles (~1966)…
Let me tell you how it will be
There’s one for you, nineteen for me
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don’t take it all
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
And you’re working for no one but me
Long, long before Rachel Reeves was even born.
George Harrison was having trouble with the taxman when he wrote that.
He wasn’t joking about the “one for you nineteen for me”. Harold Wilson’s 95% “Super Tax” on the rich.
It is daunting to consider the monumental economic naïveté of the ultra-left leaning Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson who though that people smart enough to earn the kind of money to fall into the 95% taxation bracket would be dumb enough to actually just stay there and pay it ?
(Keir Starmer seem to be aiming down that route as well.)
This was absolutely devastating to the economy – the rich left in droves as did their assets and business acumen it was called the “brain drain”.
In fact swathes of middle income earners also left the economic tyranny as well (doctors, engineers etc. etc.)
Tax revenues and GDP plummeted – the impact of this is still reverberating through the British economy to this day. They simply lost their best and brightest future business leaders to other economies but retained the dross.
This is what happens when you “tax the rich”.
News reports claim the “drain” is on-going in 2025, for different reasons.
A rock group named “Ten Years After” said it plainly enough:”Tax the rich to feed the poor until there are no rich no more.”
Yeah. Though I’m not sure they meant it as a bad thing.
Albert Lee…
Alvin Lee.
Ten Years After was an exceptional rock music group.
Ah, yes. I have the vinyl.
[Oops I read it backwards.. 5% vs 95%].
So what ? Let them eat cake.
Boy am I glad I don’t live in NY.
This is why New York City is depopulating. Except for the homeless.
And illegal aliens getting “sanctuary.”
Story Tip:
Most of the strange things come from NY before being pushed onto the rest of the world.
Therefore not living in NY won’t help, because NY will come to you,
you will be part of it,New York,New York.
Oh, come now. All the truly innovative idiocy starts in California – New York is just a copy-cat.
The thing is they don’t want you to live in NY. And remember these people also think we are too many on this planet so it is likely they don’t want you to live at all.
I am glad Gov. Hochul is watching out for New York and New Yorkers and not Texas and Texans where I am.
No sarc or sarc tag this time.
PS. The “Insurance Policy” former governor Cuomo thought Cathy Hochul would be turned out to be their choice and form of destruction.
From Ghostbusters: Gozer: “Choose! Choose the form of the Destructor!”
https://www.quotes.net/mquote/114202
What is the New York Cap and Invest web site definition of a “greenhouse gas”?
I guess that the answer must be “whatever we say it is”.
CO2 and methane are the biggies. Methane is calculated to be powerful so a sizable fraction of the emissions. And this includes the methane emitted wherever the gas and oil come from plus the pipelines getting it to NY.
I thought CO2 is almost saturated so more CO2 will have almost no effect, and the methane effect lasts a very short time so also has little influence.
Or were you missing the sarc tag?
The threshold for the saturation of the absorption of out-going long wavelength IR light emanating from the earth’s surface is 300 ppmv (0.59 g CO2/cu. m. of air) which occurred in 1920.
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 is ca. 426 ppmv (0.84 g CO2/cu. m. of air). Note that there is little CO2 in the air, and more importantly CO2 has no effect on winter weather.
For info on the saturation effect, see:
“The Saturation of the Infrared Absorption by Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere” by Dieter Schildknecht.
The URL is: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.00708v1.
I think saturation comes in degrees since it is asymptotic. There is never complete saturation so no threshold.
No sarc just saying what is in the law. Truth is not the issue.
It sounds like something geographically and politically close neighbour Mark Carney would come up with…
Story Tip:
Keir Starmer,Saddick Khan,Merz and Macron will miraculously have the exact same idea soon.
Not only Canadas noone-knew-me-everyone -hated -my-party-yet-I-won-somehow-the-election central banking sensation.
I guess it is a cultural thing, but noone (nobody) reads like noon [maybe ‘noooone’]. Even my spellchecker doesn’t recognize it; maybe it thinks it is a misspelled ‘no one.’
Sorry, petty peeve.
It’s more of a 3rd language thing in my case.
But what does culture has to do with it?(not pretending that I have some.)
Anyway – thx.I’m grateful for any correction.
‘Under the program, large-scale greenhouse gas emissions sources and distributors of heating and transportation fuels will be required to purchase or obtain allowances for the emissions associated with their activities.’
I think putting the onus of compliance on the distributors will prove to be a big problem for NY’s politicians. For one thing, there are a lot of them and they (and their customers) are going to scream bloody murder when the caps begin to bite. This is going to be a lot harder than, say, stuffing ‘renewable’ fuels into our cars and trucks.
Near the border with PA, it’s not that hard to imagine fuel being “tankered” across state lines when “the caps begin to bite” and heating fuel and diesel are running short. This will not be pretty.
Ports of entry will check for the correct documents. It all will end up just like during Prohibition.
Just imagine having to stop at a port of exit to receive your fuel tank reading document and a port of entry to make sure you didn’t buy fuel in PA.
Shades of Prohibition-era bootlegging.
We are speeding toward the cliff here in NY. I hope 2026, as an election year for governor, wakes people up to this lunacy.
I know nothing about NY. What I see in Canada is that more than half the population supports such policies. It is taught in education at all levels that the government can and should control everything and solve every problem, including controlling the weather. Most people are convinced that the government can bring about the end of fuel use and a switch to green energy.
“Most people are convinced that the government can bring about the end of fuel use and a switch to green energy.”
No argument there.
The activists believe it but I suspect most people know nothing about it.
Most people will believe (appeal to authority) whatever they are fed.
There will never ever be any phase out fossil fuels in Canada. All the primary heavy industries such as mining, forestry, agriculture, and smelters will always use enormous amounts of fossil fuels as will the heavy transports such trains, planes, ferries and ships.
For Canada temperature check, I went to:
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/countries/average-temper-by-year. The Tmax and Tmin data from 1901 to 2025 are displayed in a long table. Here is the temperature data for these two dates:
Year—–Tmax—–Tmin—–Tavg Temperatures are ° C
2024—-+1.3—— -8.1—— -3.4
1901— -0.7—– -10.3—— -5.5
Chng—+1.6——-+1.8——+2.1
After 123 years, although Canada has warmed up by the small amount of 2.1° C., the country is still the Great White North and huge amounts of fossil fuels will be used to keep the people warm in winter.
‘It is taught in education at all levels that the government can and should control everything and solve every problem, including controlling the weather.’
Therein lies the problem.
This is why Hochul is trying to stop the rationing but the Court says the law is the law.
https://www.cfact.org/2025/11/04/new-yorks-climate-law-hits-the-wall/
Hmmm, surely the Legislature could change the law???
Geez, these politicians have obviously never heard of the broken windows economic theory, or you NEVER get something for nothing.
People will leave.
Isn’t there a huge wall around NY City… or was that in a movie ??
Moat. And a few bridges. And tunnels.
View the movie Escape from New York as a guide …
You can’t escape from New York.
Interesting article –
Hey Guys! Climate Change Is Over! No Hurricanes — Why Is the Left So Quiet? – PJ Media
Washington State’s law, the Climate Commitment Act, is a similar thing. One estimate is that it raises the gas/diesel tax about 65¢/gallon. Average State price of regular gasoline is $4.027/gal. CA is 30¢ higher. Of course everything else has an increased price too.
Terminology follows something called The Climate Pledge. They even renamed “Seattle Center”, the site of the 1962 World’s Fair, as Climate Pledge Arena. “On June 25, 2020, Amazon purchased the naming rights; the arena would be branded as Climate Pledge Arena to promote Amazon’s partnership with the environmental advocacy group Global Optimism and its “Climate Pledge”, under which companies sign up to make their operations carbon neutral by 2040.”
Is there also rationing? No gas is far worse than expensive gas.
Have a look at the detail in a U.S. electricity, telephone, or water bill: the government monopolies have been taxing ratepayer rations for a very long time. Wind and solar electricity have brought the electricity hit up to the level of government addiction, where further increases in taxes, tariffs, and fees effectively reduce services.
There is no rationing yet. Cost and rationing are very different critters.
Oh no.
Exceptions would be needed for special cases like hospitals
Then hospital administrators would be able to do things like work from home and include themselves and their extended families under the definition of hospital exemption.
Then neighbors would get mad and demand cap exemption inspectors
Then….
I don’t want this ever-expanding mess.
What’s to stop NYers from driving to the next state, filling up a tank in the back of their pickup, and then simply pumping it into their storage tank as soon as they get home?
Floc (?) cameras, unfortunately.
Can those cameras see under coverings?
Don’t know. The highway situation in the East is so complicated I can’t imagine any resources being available for inspections or whatever – they can’t even keep their bridges from falling apart. Traffic rates are already maxxed, doing anything that makes matters worse probably wouldn’t last very long.
I’ve always wondered about buying Kali forbidden items in Arizona or Nevada – certain chemicals and products – like Semichrome polish, forbidden because of a few percent content of naphtha! So far, I have not needed to as there is always someone on eBay willing to sale and ship, illegally I guess, to me.
My experiences at the east-west border inspection stations coming into California is their interest (at least, their questions) is limited to produce. They always ask me where I’m coming from (New Mexico or Colorado), I’ve always assumed that is produce related. If the Kali ban on ICE generators is ever enacted I would think there will be a flow of new gen sets from out of state – will Kali try to get those states to check residence, and not allow sales to Kali residents? I doubt it, but I do think there is a bit of this going on with firearms and ammo, but I don’t know that for sure. Big regulatory difference between a gen set and a firearm.
I lived through the 70’s energy crisis in NY. Pres Carter imposed (the ridiculous) 55 mph speed limit.
Shortly thereafter there came to be a state trooper behind every freaking bush with a radar gun. I’m convinced speed enforcement was a cash cow stealth tax there for many years.
History repeats.
yes the 55 mph limit was awful. and i think it was president Nixon that implemented it not carter. and carters presidency was a nightmare.
the National Maximum Speed Limit was enacted in the 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act that withheld Federal Highway funds from States that refused to comply with provisions of the law, including a maximum speed limit of 55 miles per hour for passenger vehicles, an increase Nixon approved in signing the final legislation.
Signed by President Nixon on January 2, 1974
Future historians are going to wonder why the Left vilified the Republican President, who in severing the dollar’s last link to gold, did more to enable the expansion of the State than almost any of their Democrat icons.
I happened to be on a business trip to Our Nation’s Capital during that time period, and was actually scared on Capital Beltway, as I was trying to drive at 55 mph, and being overtaken on both sides by cars traveling much more rapidly.
With respect to firearms, Federal law requires one to live in the State where the firearm is sold. Ammo, I assume is OK.
I probably should have known that, I don’t purchase many firearms. I have purchased ammo in another state – Utah – no problem in 2012.
You are correct, Dave, to a point: You can purchase a firearm remotely from another state but you need to then pick it up from a licensed dealer in your state, with all the usual paperwork.
Ammo doesn’t have state restrictions.
All high-rise budlings, hospitals, emergency services, etc. have
diesel-electric generators for suppling power when there is primary power fails. These systems will be supplied with large amounts of diesel.
It would likely be illegal importation, especially if you sold some. But as with any prohibition there will be a black market. Tank sales look promising.
Hey, New Yorker’s keep voting these people in, so you get what you asked for
“Hey, New Yorker’s keep voting these people in, so you get what you asked for”
good and hard!
Just when you think government can’t get any dumber we are talking about stuff like this. If a government approved something like this the day it goes into effect the power companies should shut off the supply. Government is a big problem.
Those in NYC need not worry. Mamdani will roll out free energy. It will all be just fine provided you keep supporting Socialist leaders.
You New Yorkers do not have to worry about Gov. Kathy H.’s draconian climate agenda. Soon Administrator Lee Zeldin of the EPA will issue an announcement rescinding the Endangerment Finding of 2009 for CO2.
When this occurs, whatever will Gov. Kathy H. do? She will have to eat humble pie and reluctantly repeal the Climate Act.
I have been checking the Federal Register(FR) ever day or so for the announcement. So far it hasn’t been entered into the FR. So stay tuned. Interesting times are ahead.
Only the legislature can repeal the Climate Act. Hochul has said it is infeasible and is trying to get the legislature to at least take out the regulatory part and make the target aspirational, when they meet in Jan.
But the Federal endangerment finding has no direct bearing on state law.
We need to educate the Gov. Kathy H. and the Albany Alliance that CO2 does not cause global warming of air or have any effect weather or climate. We can start with some of the temperature charts from the late John L. Daly’s website “Still Waiting for Greenhouse”. See the home page below. John Daly found over 200 weather stations that showed no warming up to 2002. His charts are really convincing that CO2 does not cause warming of air.
NB: If you click on the image, it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to return to the comment text.
Is that like commercial grid-scale nuclear fusion will be available soon?
Roger Caiazza has another insightful article on his website dated 12/6/2025:
Initial Thoughts on Energy Planning Board Meeting on 1 December 2025
Roger provides his own transcript of the planning board meeting here. After reading the transcript, these are my own thoughts as an outsider who has numerous relatives living in New York state:
* The 2019 Climate Act — Aspirational or Legally Binding? *
Are the carbon emission reduction targets demanded by New York’s 2019 Climate Act aspirational in their true intent? Or are they instead a legally enforceable requirement imposed upon state and local government agencies in New York state?
Governor Hochul and her administration view the Climate Act’s targets as being aspirational. Their economic modeling criteria and their planning assumptions clearly reflect that viewpoint.
As things stand today, based on their modeling analysis, Governor Hochul’s administration states that it will be 2037 or maybe 2038 before the Climate Act’s 2030 targets can be achieved.
On the other hand, the environmental NGO’s, backed by a New York court in Albany, say that the Climate Act is legally binding direction from the state legislature to achieve the volume of emission reductions the act calls for, and on the schedule the act calls for.
Incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani also regards the Climate Act as being legally prescriptive as to how much GHG reductions must be achieved by what specific target dates.
Mamdani and the political constituencies he represents are working hard to gain full control of the state Democratic Party; to unseat Governor Hochul in favor of a radical socialist governor; and to gain full control of the state legislature.
If the radical socialists do manage to take full control of New York state government, what will their revised Net Zero transition plan look like?
* New York as an Net Zero Island, or New York as a Net Zero Regional Player? *
Governor Hochul and her administration view New York state’s efforts at achieving a Net Zero future as being part of a larger regional and nationwide effort to achieve Net Zero for the US as a whole. Their planning assumptions for implementation of the Climate Act directly reflect this viewpoint.
Hochul’s people cite Trump’s abandonment of Net Zero aspirations at the federal level as being the primary obstacle to achieving the 2019 Climate Act’s very ambitious 2030 targets.
But a closer look at the many overly-optimistic assumptions made in the Hochul administration’s Climate Act planning effort reveals that there are so many of these assumptions present that achieving the 2030 targets by 2037 or 2038 is also completely impossible.
Suppose the Mamdani faction wins out over the Hochul faction and takes full control of New York state government. Suppose further the Mamdani faction promises to do whatever has to be done to achieve the Climate Act’s 2030 Net Zero targets.
The only possible means of achieving those 2030 targets would be to impose a strict energy rationing scheme on New York’s economy.
In other words, a New York citizen would get only so many gallons of heating oil, so many cubic feet of natural gas, so many gallons of gasoline and diesel, and only so many kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Yeah. Right.
One can only try to imagine the crime and graft that Democrats would arrange to overcome their own restrictions. !
Dumbass watermelons have yet to comprehend Gummint can control price or quantity but NEVER BOTH at the same time. That sort of ignorance has interred and slaughtered millions.
What makes it binding is the section saying regulations must be enacted by 2024 that ENSURE compliance with the 2030 target.
David Wojick: “What makes it binding is the section saying regulations must be enacted by 2024 that ENSURE compliance with the 2030 target.”
The New York judge in the DEC lawsuit case came to the same conclusion. The 2019 legislation says what it says. Change the 2019 Climate Act or have the DEC issue regulations in compliance with the law’s emission reduction targets and schedule.
The Hochul administration doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on in saying that it shouldn’t have to follow through with publishing DEC emission control regulations because of the harm it would cause to the citizenry.
Unless the judge’s ruling is overturned on appeal, the state must either change the law by February 6th, 2026, or the Hochul administration must publish a set of emission regulations by that date.
It is impossible for the DEC to publish a compliant set of regulations by February 6th, 2026, simply for the fact that the public review process would go beyond that date even if the regulations could be drafted by that time.
But as I said on WUWT about a month ago, suppose the legislature doesn’t change the law and the Hochul administration doesn’t put new regulations in place by the judge’s deadline.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit could draft their own set of DEC regulations which are compliant with the 2019 Act and could then ask the judge to impose those regulations on the DEC as ‘interim’ regulations without further public review.
If that happened, the Hochul administration would surely find itself between a very hard rock and a very hard place in facing the prospect that compliance with The Act could only be achieved through a strictly enforced energy rationing scheme.
Were they?
‘New York as an Net Zero Island, or New York as a Net Zero Regional Player?’
How about New York as two separate political entities? I know ‘secession’ carries a lot of historical baggage, but allowing sizable portions of the citizenry to peacefully decouple themselves from those who ultimately seek to grind them to dust under the heel of the Left seems to be a far preferable alternative.
The Mamdani faction of the state Democratic Party will have no reservations about stomping on upstate New Yorkers if and when it gains full control of state government. And they will do it with gusto.
We have a similar situation here in eastern Washington State and in eastern Oregon. The coastal elites in Seattle and Portland call the shots and the rest of us either go along or move to Idaho.
A cursory view of any electoral map shows blue heavily populated urban areas in a sea of red. Prior to Reynolds vs. Sims (1964), rural areas were able to maintain some semblance of representation at the state level through the upper house of their respective state legislatures. Since then, state senates have been reapportioned to the extent that they are now virtual clones of their lower houses, meaning that urban voters now run roughshod over rural voters.
That is the intent of “one man, one vote” and democracy.
Fighting other fires so did not get to this until today. I published another post on the SEP meeting: Energy Affordability Initial Thoughts at SEP Board Meeting on 12/1/2025 Here is the finding from the presnentation that should enrage New Yorkers: For a moderate-income household in Upstate New York that uses natural gas the difference between replacement of conventional equipment and the highly efficient electrification equipment necessary for Climate Act compliance increases monthly average energy expenditures $593, a whopping 43% increase in energy costs. :
Substitute Washington state for New York. The words are the same “Cap and invest”.
Our legislators (in WA) have decided to punish those that can least afford to pay more for a necessity for life. And our “allowance to emit” fee to energy producers increases 5% PLUS CPI every year. Our gas prices already rival CA and HI, but soon we will highest in the country.
Investing $billions for projects of questionable value such as electrifying our ferry system and state funding of EV stations. Among the first ferry to transition: Bainbridge Island, serving one of the richest communities in the US.
Get a one ton van and put a 250 gallon tank in the back. Start running black market fuel oil from Pennsylvania to Long Island. Two trips a day $3.00 gallon mark up.