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This analysis and news roundup come from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday.
President Donald Trump has all but dismantled U.S. efforts to curb pollution that’s warming the planet and harming human health.
Yet with every federal blow to climate action, states have launched a counterpunch. Take Colorado: After Trump and congressional Republicans ended federal EV tax credits, the state juiced its own clean-car incentives. California has meanwhile inked a deal with the United Kingdom to cooperate on clean energy and climate efforts. And several other states are considering “climate superfund” laws, which seek to hold fossil fuel companies financially responsible for climate change–induced damages.
But instead of doubling down on decarbonization in this critical hour, and despite touting that it has one of the most ambitious climate laws in the country, New York is quietly backing away from its efforts.
The most recent and symbolically loaded move concerns that very same climate law, the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. New York’s utility regulator is currently considering suspending its marquee clean-energy goal, which requires the state to get 70% of its power from renewables by 2030 and 100% by 2040.
To be clear, New York is not on track to meet this target anyway. But behind the proposed rollback is a petition, signed by two natural gas company veterans, which claims that the target will jeopardize grid reliability, Gothamist reports. New York’s grid operator has cautioned that power shortfalls are a mounting risk, but environmental advocates point out that the warning doesn’t take a ton of soon-to-connect clean energy projects into account. That includes two offshore wind projects that have been slowed by the Trump administration.
It’s just the latest climate retreat by Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who is up for reelection this year.
Last year, New York was poised to implement a first-of-its-kind ban on fossil-fueled heating and appliances in new homes and buildings. But in November, just before the rule was set to take effect, the state said it wouldn’t enforce the regulation while a lawsuit continued to play out.
Hochul has also repeatedly delayed the implementation of the cap-and-invest program that’s essential to New York’s emissions goals, leaving what could be billions of dollars for renewables construction and energy-efficiency projects in limbo.
And while Hochul has called for more clean energy and nuclear power to meet rising demand, she has also signaled natural gas is essential to the state’s energy strategy, as she allowed a previously rejected pipeline to move forward.
Hochul’s motive for most of these moves has been clear: She’s worried about rising power prices in the state and has cited a need to “govern in reality” amid the federal government’s clean energy assault. But as a warming climate puts New York and the rest of the world increasingly at risk, running in the wrong direction on decarbonization is anything but governing in reality.
What the endangerment finding rollback means for automakers
The EPA last week revoked the endangerment finding, which underpins the U.S. government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This rollback has upended federal tailpipe emissions regulations, which the administration says will curb vehicle prices and save Americans as much as $1.3 trillion by 2055.
But the EPA’s own analysis tells a different story, The Guardian reports. It estimates Americans will rack up more than $1.4 trillion as they buy more fuel, need more repairs, and face increased traffic and noise — essentially negating those touted savings.
And it’s unlikely that U.S. automakers will backtrack on vehicle efficiency like the EPA wants, experts tell The New York Times. The rest of the world is still moving toward electric vehicles, so cars that use more gasoline are the opposite of what other countries — and many Americans — will buy.
Fake public comments are clean energy’s latest threat
As if clean energy didn’t have enough challenges to deal with.
Last June, Southern California’s top air-quality authority rejected a plan that would have pushed the region away from gas appliances. Regulators received tens of thousands of comments opposing the plan, but a Los Angeles Times investigation found at least 20,000 of them appear to have been AI-generated. The agency’s staffers also reached out to some alleged commenters, and at least three said they hadn’t written a comment.
The incident is similar to what Canary Media’s Kathiann M. Kowalski reported on earlier this month. In Ohio, state regulators may reject a solar farm that received dozens of public comments opposing it. But as the project’s developer found, and Kowalski verified, more than 30 of those commenters appear to have used fake names or lied about living in the county where the solar farm will be built.
Another coal-plant prop-up: Documents indicate that the Trump administration will move to let coal plants emit more hazardous pollutants, including mercury, in an attempt to juice the industry. (New York Times)
Chillin’ with Duke Energy: Canary reporter Elizabeth Ouzts let North Carolina utility Duke Energy remotely lower her thermostat in exchange for bill credits, and even in a recent cold spell, Ouzts says she found the savings meaningful. (Canary Media)
Illinois’ nuclear reversal: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) calls for the state to build at least 2 gigawatts of nuclear capacity, just a month after lifting the state’s long-standing moratorium on nuclear construction. (Bloomberg)
Cancer Alley’s new threat: Louisiana residents already saturated with petrochemical pollution now face a wave of “blue ammonia” plants, which will burn fossil fuels and potentially saddle them with even more emissions. (Floodlight)
Power surge: 2025 was a tough year for clean energy in the U.S., but grid batteries still set another installation record as more solar power came online and power demand rose. (Canary Media)
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