Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: The Business Council of New York State (BCNYS) is highly active on climate policy with consistently negative positions. BCNYS frequently publishes memos on its website detailing its positions on New York climate policy. The group strongly promotes market-based approaches over government regulation to respond to climate change. BCNYS appears most active on policy related to the energy transition, but has also engaged on policies related to the circular economy, clean fuel standards and emissions trading. Though most of its engagement occurs at the state level, the group has joined coalitions of other business associations to comment on federal climate policy.
Top-Line Messaging on Climate Policy: InfluenceMap finds limited evidence of the Business Council’s top-line messaging on climate change. BCNYS does not appear to have made statements related to climate science, IPCC timelines and targets, or the Paris Agreement. BCNYS is largely unsupportive of government regulation to respond to climate change, and has consistently opposed New York’s efforts to implement climate policy through its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) and Scoping Plan, including in a March 2023 memo expressing strong disapproval of the state’s efforts to price carbon emissions.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: BCNYS actively opposes various forms of climate policy at the state level, with limited exceptions. The group opposed the state’s efforts to implement an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program in a June 2024 memo, stating that the proposed legislation “fall(s) well short of what is necessary to create an affordable, workable, ‘competitive’ and effective packaging collection, recycling, and material reuse program,” and suggesting that, in effect, the policy constitutes a “‘backdoor’ material ban.” In a March 2024 memo commenting on a legislative proposal to implement a statewide emissions trading system, the Business Council stated it was “supportive of the use of a ‘cap and invest program,’ yet went on to call the legislation “unnecessarily restrictive,” “overly complex” and “unreasonable.”
BCNYS demonstrates a mix of positive and negative positions on greenhouse gas emissions regulation, stating support for emissions reduction targets for transportation to incentivize clean fuel adoption in a May 2024 memo, but emphasizing that the legislation should support market-based approaches to achieving the proposed targets, “rather than imposing specific carbon-content or carbon-emissions standards.”
Positioning on Energy Transition: BCNYS actively opposes policies aimed at transitioning the energy mix at both the federal and state level. BCNYS signed onto an April 2024 coalition letter alongside other state chambers and business associations calling on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) to reject the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) authorization request to enact rail decarbonization policy, calling CARB’s proposal “draconian” and arguing that approval of the request would “open the floodgates to expansion of these disruptive mandates” by creating opportunity for “other states to adopt the CARB regulation once authorized by the EPA.” In a March 2023 coalition letter to Congress, BCNYS supported federal permitting reform, but did not take a clear position on the types of energy infrastructure for which to expedite the permitting process.
At the state level, BCNYS opposed the repeal of fuel tax exemptions in a March 2024 memo, effectively supporting the continued subsidization of petroleum and fossil gas use for manufacturers. The group has actively supported a continued role for fossil fuels in the energy mix, including in its opposition to New York’s HEAT Act, which aims to decarbonize residential heating. In a May 2024 memo opposing the legislation, BCNYS suggested that government intervention to phase down fossil gas use would inhibit the energy transition, rather than aid it. This followed a February 2024 memo in which BCNYS advocated for “expanded use of renewable natural gas and hydrogen” as “long-term options” to decarbonize hard-to-abate industries, without mention of the need for emissions abatement measures on the use of these energy feedstocks, which presently rely on fossil gas.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically. This summary was last updated in Q3 2024.