Governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday signed several bills into law designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support the development of clean energy networks.
The bills — which call for updates to existing building and appliance codes specifically to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, allow for utilities to pilot local geothermal energy networks, and subject the solar energy industry to prevailing wage standards — were passed before the US Supreme Court last week gutted the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions, in a wide-ranging ruling that could imperil the federal government’s entire regulatory apparatus.
But Hochul took the opportunity to specifically position New York as a bulwark against an increasingly brazen right-wing court, which in the past two weeks has also overturned the constitutional right to abortion and struck down New York’s strict regulations against concealed carry of firearms.
