New York

New York has tried to pass a carbon tax with bills introduced in 2015 and 2017 but without success. At this point legislators appear to be wary of anything that could be read as a tax. However, carbon pricing via “market-based mechanisms” is moving ahead with follow-up legislation to A10342 the Climate and Community Protection Act (see below).

New York is already a member of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) so has cap and trade control on power plant emissions. They are also a member of the Transportation and Climate Initiative, but have not joined a select group of TCI states who are working to cap transportation emissions and trade emission permits in a system modeled after RGGI.

2019 Legislative Session

S2992/A3876 Enacts the Climate and Community Protection Act (Senator Kaminsky, Assemblymember Englebright). This was first introduced in 2016 as A10342, It charges the Department of Environmental Conservation with to develop a scoping plan showing how to meet their greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. The bill allows the Department to consider market-based mechanisms – either cap and trade or carbon tax/fee – to help reduce GHG.

 A3459 Establishes a tax on carbon emissions and establishing the carbon tax revenue fund (Ortiz) would establish a carbon fee to start at $5 per ton of carbon in any carbon-based fuel that is sold. The tax would, increasing by at least the rate of annual inflation plus 1% for the first ten years and by at least the rate of inflation after. The revenues will be placed in the Carbon Tax Revenue Fund. How the money would be spent is obscure.

Last updated February 4, 2019