Across New York, headlines are highlighting Governor Kathy Hochul’s monumental rollback of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the state’s landmark climate law. Recent reporting from Politico New York highlighted that “The Hochul administration has already missed targets in the law for establishing regulations to meet a 2030 target for emissions reductions,” while The New York Times reprinted the Governor’s remarks underscoring the challenge:
“I cannot deal in hypotheticals and aspirations when I have to govern a state where my people are suffering, and I have to alleviate that pain.”
In an accompanying op-ed published in Empire Report, the Governor made the shift even clearer:
“…so much has radically changed since the Climate Act was enacted, necessitating common-sense adjustments that keep us on our path to a greener future in a way that is affordable for New Yorkers.”
In other words, even Albany acknowledges that aggressive climate mandates come with real tradeoffs.
Yet despite this shift, well-funded activists groups, including those backed by the Rockefeller network, are pressing forward with a new wave of legislation, including S 8585, aimed at expanding liability for American energy producers.
A Decade-Long Playbook
This latest push is part of a long-running, coordinated legal and political campaign targeting the U.S. energy industry. And New York has been at the center of that effort.
In November 2015, then-New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched an investigation into ExxonMobil on the heels of activist pressure. While Schneiderman initially alleged that the company’s public statements on climate change were at odds with internal research, the theory quickly fell apart.
It took three years of investigations, and shifting theories, for New York to file a lawsuit against ExxonMobil in October 2018. But in late 2019, after four years, three legal theories, four million documents, and a eleven-day trial, New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager ruled that ExxonMobil did not deceive or mislead investors over climate change impacts.
Shortly after the ruling, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that her office wouldn’t appeal the court’s decision—underscoring the weakness of the case.
Parallel efforts at the municipal level followed a similar path. New York City sued five energy companies in 2018 seeking damages tied to climate impacts, which were repeatedly dismissed by federal courts.
From Courts to the Legislature
With litigation faltering, activists have increasingly turned to state legislatures. In 2019, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the activist-backed Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, one of the most aggressive climate laws in the country. The law requires significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and mandates that 70% of the state’s electricity be sourced from renewables by 2030.
More recently, New York adopted the Climate Superfund Act in 2024, designed to retroactively force financial liability to energy companies for alleged climate-related damages. The bill was subsequently signed by Governor Hochul.
However, the law is now entangled in court proceedings, as the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint in May 2025 for allegedly “trampling” on federal law through the superfund.
The Next Iteration: Expanding Liability
Now with the lawsuit route closed and the climate superfund bill stuck in court, activists are advancing S 8585, another attempt to shift climate costs onto energy producers through the courts.
The bill would expand pathways for civil litigation, allowing the New York Attorney General and private insurers to pursue claims tied to climate-related damages.
While the bill has failed to advance, its backers are actively trying to shape public opinion. A recent poll commissioned by the Rockefeller-backed Center for Climate Integrity and conducted by Data for Progress attempted to build support for the legislation.
The poll framed the bill as recovering costs instead of insurers passing those costs onto New Yorkers, with a messaging that claimed energy companies had spent decades lying to the public – language built as part of a litigious campaign to take down America’s energy industry.
Bottom Line:
From lawsuits, to superfund-style legislation, to new liability frameworks like S 8585, activists’ playbook remain the same: expand legal and financial pressure on the companies that power the U.S. economy. New Yorkers will have to wait and see if the legislature will follow the Governor’s pragmatic shift, or continue advancing policies guided by activist lobbying against consumers’ livelihoods.
