Albany, NY — “Governor Hochul’s Department of Environmental Conservation just approved the same toxic, unnecessary pipeline that New York has already rejected multiple times. Nothing about this project has changed: it still threatens our water, violates our climate law, and hands billions to fossil-fuel corporations with working families left to pay the price in higher utility bills.
This decision is a moral failure and a dirty deal with Trump. By siding with Donald Trump and his fossil-fuel allies, Governor Hochul has once again put politics and profit ahead of people. She has ignored the science, dismissed the public, and broken faith with the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who spoke out against this pipeline. Leadership means more than hiding behind process, it means having the courage to say no when it matters.
The NESE pipeline would stir up toxic sediment in already contaminated waters, raise utility bills by billions, and keep New Yorkers hooked to expensive polluting fracked gas, making it harder for our state to build the public and private renewable energy infrastructure we desperately need. That’s not leadership — that’s surrender.
“We stand with the communities who’ve been fighting this project from day one. Their fight is righteous, and it’s not over. We can’t protect our planet or our people by bending to Trump’s agenda. We do it by standing up, speaking truth, and leading with conviction. And we’ll keep fighting until we build a clean-energy future worthy of this state, its values and its laws,” said Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado.
“The approval of the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) Pipeline by Governor Hochul’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is a betrayal of New Yorkers. While the Governor pays lip service to addressing the crises of affordability and climate change, her approval of this dirty pipeline demonstrates who she really stands with: Donald Trump and the oil and gas billionaires pulling the strings at the federal level,” said Carolyn Martinez-Class and Rebecca Garrard, Co-Directors of Citizen Action of New York. “Hochul could have rejected this pipeline and stood up strongly to the climate change-denying Trump administration. Instead, she has signed off on building more fossil fuel infrastructure that is going to raise utility costs for working-class New Yorkers, pollute our neighborhoods and, as DEC admits, will worsen the climate crisis. Shame on Governor Hochul.”
“The NESE pipeline will increase utility bills and worsen the climate crisis. As a Jamaican New Yorker, this week has been devastating – Hurricane Melissa destroyed our family homes and communities while our neighbors in New York drown in their basements. We know these storms are a product of climate heating pollution – while families in Jamaica are suffering and Hochul’s decision to approve the NESE pipeline adds insult to injury. The pollution caused by NESE will make the next Melissa stronger while increasing the cost of New Yorkers utility bills. It’s unnecessary and uncalled for. The governor should stand up to Trump and the fossil fuel industry to protect New York, the Caribbean, and the planet,” said Winsome Pendergrass, member of New York Communities for Change.
“The scientific and moral imperative is clear: climate scientists have issued a clarion call to massively fast-track climate action on all fronts if we are to avert critical tipping points in the climate system. So, we must ask why Governor Hochul has aligned with the fossil fuel industry to inject more climate disrupting fracked-gas methane into the atmosphere, which only speeds up the pace toward catastrophic tipping points. Governor Hochul is literally stealing from our children’s future while continuing to enable the Big Oil Barons and their investors,” said Michael Richardson, Third Act Upstate New York and Katherine Alford, Third Act NYC.
###
