Those mandates, which Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to delay, include having an energy system relying entirely on clean energy by 2040. But nearly seven years after they were established, the state isn't on track to hit that mandate or its near-term target of converting the grid to 70% renewable energy by 2030.
Texas never set ambitious clean energy goals, but is building faster than New York, in part because of deregulation, limited local opposition and investments into the infrastructure that carries power from rural parts of the state to urban cores.
Other states leading in renewable energy development, including Kansas, Oklahoma and Florida, have no state clean energy mandates. In fact, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 14 states added more wind and solar power sources than New York in the seven years since the Climate Act was signed into law by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Even with the languishing roll out — the Solar Energy Industries Association ranks New York 34th in building large solar arrays — the state is a leader in rooftop solar and small, community-scale projects.Next year, New York City will get energy from several wind projects off the Long Island coast. Hydropower from Quebec will also provide clean energy to the city as soon as this summer.
But the slow build-out is undercutting a law that's facing increased skepticism from Hochul's administration, which last week estimated that the mandates — as written — would increase the average utility bill more than $4,000 for an upstate family that uses natural gas or oil to heat their homes. Hochul has said she wants to amend the Climate Act and potentially delay some of the most difficult mandates, a position that has brought fierce pushback from Democratic senators and many environmental advocates.
"The current law's benchmarks... (are) not able to be achieved under the current framework," Blake Washington, the state budget director, said recently.
"In order to achieve those goals, it would require substantial investments from New York state ratepayers at a time when affordability is top of mind," he continued.
The administration has said it's also open to modernizing many of the state's antiquated natural gas plants to maintain reliability in New York City, where future energy supplies are projected to be problematic.
Hochul's positioning on the Climate Act is also stoking unrest among many Democrats because it aligns with the concerns that Republicans and the business and energy sectors have. They have for years warned that the mandates are unattainable as written, and also had never been the subject of an analysis to determine what they might cost consumers.
'Deep Red Texas'
To get the Climate Act back on track, some Democratic lawmakers are using Texas as an example to persuade Hochul's administration that building renewable energy is cheaper and quicker than fossil fuel facilities.
"Look at Texas, deep red Texas, which doesn't even believe in climate change, all of their new generation has been renewable," said state Sen. Peter Harckham, a Westchester County Democrat and strong proponent of the Climate Act.
The cost of electricity in Texas is about 50% cheaper than New York and below the national average. Many factors impact electricity rates, including less regulation in Texas, which is also close to natural gas production hubs. Between 2010 and 2022, the abundance of renewable energy brought energy prices in Texas down nearly $28 billion, according to IdeaSmiths, an energy system research company in Austin.
A basic scientific reality explains some of the disparity between New York and Texas.
Turbines being activated by the high wind speeds of the Great Plains generate more energy than most places in the United States. In New York, where trees and uneven terrain mitigate wind, more turbines are needed to produce the same amount of energy as a facility in Texas. That raises costs and extends building timelines, slowing down the pace of growth.
Renewable energy is also best developed in lightly populated areas where panels and turbines can be installed across vast stretches of flat land. Rural communities usually only have weak transmission lines to serve a sparse population.
That dynamic has effectively cut off many areas of New York from the renewable energy sector as builders struggle to find regions with ample electric infrastructure.
Texas addressed the problem more than 20 years ago as the wind turbine industry grew in the early 2000s.
In 2005, the Texas Legislature directed the installation of high-voltage transmission lines from the western part of the state to reach the large population centers of Dallas, Waco and Austin.
The investment "really paid off" because, once the projects were completed in 2014, the electric system was "de-bottlenecked," allowing affordable renewable energy to reach population centers, said Aparajita Datta, an energy policy researcher at the University of Houston.
New York advanced a similar transmission upgrade plan, but it was created four years after the Climate Act's passage in 2019.
The New York Public Service Commission authorized that $4.4 billion program in 2023 to expand energy transmission, but the projects won't be completed until at least 2030. They're also projected to create only about 20% as much renewable energy as the early 2000s efforts in Texas.
New York can't change wind speeds or catch up with decades of missed investment planning, but there are policies inhibiting growth in New York and spurring it in Texas, according to electric grid researchers and developers in both states that were interviewed for this story.
Texas allows for wind and solar facilities to be constructed even if the transmission system is too overloaded to carry their power at all times. For a few hours every year, a wind farm may not be able to sell power but the developer didn't have to spend millions upgrading the substations and transmission lines.
In New York, generators must make costly upgrades to the grid to ensure they're never blocked from sending electricity into the system.
Adopting flexible interconnection is a cheap way to get more "cost-effective solar and storage online," said Noah Ginsburg, executive director of the New York Solar Energy Industries Association.
Harckham, who chairs the Senate's Environmental Conservation Committee, is pushing legislation allowing for more flexible interconnection to New York's grid. Harckham's bill "doubles down" on proliferating small-scale and rooftop solar, two areas where the state has been successful. More than 250,000 New York homes and businesses have rooftop solar and no state generates more power from small arrays.
Can't Say No to Solar
Where Texas beats New York is in the speed at which large solar arrays and wind farms are built.
Nolan County, situated in the vast plains of west Texas, has roughly the same wind power capacity as the entire state of New York.
Rod Wetsel, an energy attorney in the county, is often asked how the state built so much wind and solar under "two governors who were oil men and Republicans."
"The complete lack of any regulation at all," Wetsel said, answering his own question.
Renewable energy developers must comply with federal regulations on air traffic safety and endangered species protection, but there are few local regulatory impediments in Texas, Wetsel added.
Developers usually have to negotiate with county officials on property tax agreements and payments to ensure construction doesn't impact roads, but local governments have little recourse to outright stop them from building.
Former Texas Attorney General Angela Colmenero determined in 2023 that county officials could not impose a moratorium on renewable energy under state law.
Many local governments in New York have solar, wind and battery storage moratoriums, although the state can override some of those restrictions.
"I wouldn't want it to be the Wild West, where all you need to do is run an extension cord across the road," said James C. Johnson, executive director of the Steuben County Industrial Development Agency. "But, I think the process in New York state, at times, can be overly burdensome to develop projects."
Johnson pointed to the Canisteo Wind project, a large proposed wind farm in Steuben County, which has been working through New York environmental reviews and permitting for almost 10 years.
The vast majority of renewable energy projects that entered an agreement with the state between 2018 and 2022 have been canceled, according to Potomac Economics, a research firm that monitors New York's grid.
"Contracted projects have faced headwinds including permitting opposition, interconnection costs and delays, rising construction costs and effects of the (coronavirus) pandemic," Potomac wrote in 2025.
In 2024, New York was the costliest place to build large-scale solar projects, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
To make up the difference between expenses and revenue, developers seek state-awarded incentives that come out of utility bills.
Many solar and wind farms have been canceled or delayed because if there are cost overruns, the agreed upon incentive still won't be enough to ensure the project is viable.
Renewable energy projects getting built in collaboration with the New York Power Authority are not projected to generate nearly enough revenue exclusively from selling energy in the wholesale market to cover their costs. To ensure projects secure financing, the authority is pursuing state-awarded incentives and agreements to sell energy to large users, according to the authority's Renewables Strategic Plan.
Rising material prices tied to federal tariffs, the congressional removal of renewable energy tax credits and high labor expenses are driving development costs higher, said Christopher Hutson, senior vice president of development at the authority.
The state's expanded wetland rules which went into effect in early 2025 are also one of the things "increasing costs and risks for energy projects," said John T. McManus, a New York attorney with experience litigating both fossil fuel and renewable energy cases.
The state Legislature passed a law in 2022 that led to the creation of 1 million additional acres of protected wetlands in the state. That limits where renewable energy can be constructed as wind turbines are only allowed on the lowest tier of wetland.
Increased wetlands protections are an "incredible victory for environmental conservation," said state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Amanda Lefton.
Johnson, the executive director of Steuben County's Industrial Development Agency, said a major manufacturing project is reconsidering building there after 20 acres of the proposed site were found to be wetlands under the new rules.
A collection of industry groups, including the Business Council of New York State, is challenging the rules in court, alleging they will lead to "decreased housing availability and affordability, reduced local tax revenues, job losses across sectors, increased suburban sprawl, and the accelerated outmigration of residents and businesses."
Big Sacrifices
Even the most strident supporters of renewable energy in New York don't want to adopt Texas' deregulatory approach to accelerate construction.
"You can have a Home Depot next to a residential home (in Texas), I don't know that we want to go there (in New York)," said Harckham, who was elected to the state Senate in 2018.
Some environmental researchers agree, saying it's better to find balance between stifling growth and preventing harmful effects to local ecosystems.
"Permitting is a very low obstacle in Texas. ... That's good for building out renewables, but at what cost to the local ecosystem and landscape," said Ryan McManamay, an ecologist at Baylor University.
There's an air of inevitability when a renewable energy developer comes into a community in Texas, said Ryan Crowe, an economic development official in northwest Texas.
"There are always legitimate concerns," Crowe said, referring to any large development, renewable or otherwise.
With little recourse, residents take a "pragmatic" approach to maximize the benefits of large projects because there's wide understanding that they're "going to happen."
State Sen. Michelle Hinchey, a Hudson Valley Democrat, wants New York to strike a balance of building clean energy without compromising "our other beliefs in environmental impacts and protections as well as community input."
The Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission — created by the state Legislature in 2020 — is supposed to provide renewable energy developers with a more streamlined approval process while also accounting for environmental impacts and community concerns.
Wind and solar projects are getting approvals under a quicker timeline under the office.
But local rules are often overridden by state regulators in the permitting process, upsetting communities.
"Let's listen to the local municipality, rather than saying, if their local (regulations) are excessive, we can override them, and (the state and developer) get to decide what's excessive," said Jason Pfotenhauer, director of planning in St. Lawrence County.
Suzanne Mettler, a Cornell professor who studies polarization between rural and urban Americans, cautioned against embracing deregulation and a lack of community input.
It's large population centers like New York City that are facing reliability needs, but those are regions where it is more difficult to build renewable energy sources. The state's grid is also strained from increases in manufacturing, data centers and home and vehicle electrification.
"It's the urbanites who need all of that energy, and they are in effect, asking or really demanding that rural places make big sacrifices on their behalf," Mettler said.
To build renewable energy and fight climate change, there must be a "democratic process where local communities get some voice," she added.
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