Town of Palm Tree v. Climate Justice Working Group

A New York trial court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Town of Palm Tree, Village of Kiryas Joel, and local officials challenging the Climate Justice Working Group’s (CJWG’s) criteria for and designation of “disadvantaged communities” (DACs) pursuant to New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The court concluded that the CJWG’s actions were not “rules” subject to the State Administrative Procedure Act or “actions” subject to the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). The court further found, however, that even if the CJWG’s actions were subject to SEQRA, the record demonstrated that CJWG conducted a sufficient review of the potential environmental impacts of the DAC criteria and that failure to classify the actions under SEQRA therefore would not provide a basis for annulling the CJWG’s actions. The court also found that the CJWG’s determinations were not arbitrary or capricious, were fully in accordance with applicable law and procedure, and were not discriminatory. The court also concluded that the CJWG’s use of a weighted race/ethnicity score survived rational basis review and did not violate the petitioners’ equal protection rights. In addition, the court further found that the use of the weighted race/ethnicity score would survive strict scrutiny if it applied because the CJWG’s process was “narrowly tailored to address a compelling state interest, specifically, to remediate past discrimination against Black and Hispanic residents of the State of New York.”

A New York Supreme Court denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a town and village to challenge their exclusion from the list of “disadvantaged communities” (DACs) designated by the Climate Justice Working Group pursuant to the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The CLCPA requires that at least 35% of the benefits of investment in clean energy, energy efficiency, and other programs go to DACs, with a goal of 40%. The court agreed with the petitioners that inclusion on the DAC list “creates a benefit for certain communities to the detriment of communities … that are excluded.” The court therefore concluded that the petitioners had alleged a harm-in-fact sufficient for standing. The court also agreed with the petitioners that denying standing would “create an impenetrable barrier” to review of the issue of the issue raised by the petitioners: “the consequences of the race-based determinations inherent in the DAC criteria.”

A New York town and village, along with town and village officials, filed a proceeding in New York state court challenging the exclusion of the village from the list of “disadvantaged communities” promulgated under New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The CLCPA directs that at least 35%, with a goal of 40%, of the benefits of investments in clean energy and energy efficiency go to disadvantaged communities. The petitioners contended that the exclusion of the village was arbitrary and capricious and unsupported by substantial evidence; that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation had arbitrarily departed from its own designation of the village as a disadvantaged community for the purposes of other programs; and that the respondents failed to comply with the State Administrative Procedure Act, the New York Constitution, and the State Environmental Quality Review Act.