Protecting the Environment & Enhancing the Wellbeing of All New Yorkers
Clean Water Inspiring Parks and Trails Resilient Food Systems Renewable Energy
Each of these is critical to creating the healthy environment that New Yorkers deserve and improving quality of life for everyone in the state. To achieve these goals for the Hudson Valley and all New Yorkers, Scenic Hudson supports the following initiatives for the 2026-2027 budget session:
What’s at stake?
The Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) is New York’s only dedicated capital investment program for the environment. It supports more than 100 environmental programs that provide a broad array of resources benefitting all New Yorkers. The demand for EPF-funded programs continues to outpace available funding by a wide margin.
In response, Scenic Hudson joins the New Yorkers for Clean Water & Jobs coalition in urging the Legislature to at least maintain the $425 million EPF appropriation in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget, and begin working to increase the appropriation to $500 million annually in future years. Doing so will expand programs that will further protect the environment, enhance communities, and bolster the economy. From safeguarding clean water to promoting climate resilience, an increased EPF would help ensure a healthier, more vibrant future for our state by advancing the goals envisioned in New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
We also respectfully request the following allocations for each of the line items and programs below within a $425 million EPF:
We highly value the critical work of the Hudson River Estuary Program (HREP). Through technical assistance and grants, community education, and foundational research, this program has wide-reaching community impacts. We are grateful for the $7.5 million allocated in the FY 2026 State Budget for the Hudson River Estuary Management Plan — but this allocation actually represents a $500,000 decrease in HREP funding due to an error that unintentionally increased the Mohawk River Basin suballocation from $1 million to $1.5 million without a corresponding increase in the overall appropriation.
Both the Hudson River Estuary and Mohawk River Basin Management programs are critical to the health of these vital natural resources. We respectfully urge the Legislature to provide a total of $8 million for the Hudson River Estuary Management Plan in the FY 2027 State Budget, restoring the $6.5 million funding level for the Hudson, while maintaining the $1.5 million suballocation for the Mohawk.
Currently, New York State has no dedicated funding for greenway trails. As part of a broader coalition of land trusts and environmental organizations, we respectfully request a new line item for Greenway Trail Connections under the Parks and Recreation account of the EPF. Greenway trails are essential infrastructure that connect people to the outdoors, encourage climate-friendly transportation, and improve wellness through accessible recreation opportunities. An initial allocation of $10 million ($8 million for construction, $2 million for planning) in the FY 2027 State Budget would provide the infusion of capital needed to make the many planned and proposed trails across the state a reality, guaranteeing better recreational trail access for all New Yorkers.
Much of the current work to transition farms to climate-resilient farming practices in New York State would not be possible without local Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs). SWCDs play a pivotal role in providing targeted funding and delivering technical assistance to farmers and land managers in every county. This helps enable the on-the-ground application of research-informed climate-resilient farming practices, while promoting farm economic viability and environmental sustainability. In the Climate Action Council’s Scoping Plan, expanding SWCD capacity is a key component of multiple strategies to achieve our state’s climate goals.
We respectfully encourage the Legislature to support the Governor’s proposed $18.65 million for SWCDs in the FY 2027 State Budget. This increase would help build District capacity to assist and educate farmers and land managers as they concurrently navigate the impacts of climate change on their land, contribute to state and regional economies, and produce nutritious local food.
Scenic Hudson deeply values our working relationship with SWCDs. We partner with them and local farming communities through our Regenerative Agriculture Demonstration Area initiative to promote important environmental, economic, and sustainability objectives in the Hudson Valley.
We were thrilled that the Climate Resilient Farming Program received a $4.25 million boost in the FY 2026 Budget. We sincerely appreciate this increased investment in direct response to the demonstrated needs of New York farmers to advance sustainable, climate-smart practices, while enhancing their economic bottom line.
To continue to build on this good work and amplify the program’s positive impact on state climate and farm viability goals, we urge the Legislature to maintain a minimum of $19.5 million for this essential program in the final FY 2027 State Budget.
In the recent past, we have seen as much as $33 million put directly to work on farms across the state in a single year through the Climate Resilient Farming Program. Even this, however, was not sufficient to fulfill every funding request from New York farmers, which totaled over $40 million. It is not the time to cut back on funding for this program, which supports working farms on the front lines of a changing climate. Maintaining at least $19.5 million in funding will support the farmers who are already using these methods, and enable more farmers to adopt both centuries-old and innovative practices that reduce on-farm emissions, sequester carbon, protect and increase water quality, enhance food system resiliency and farm viability, and provide essential ecosystem services.
Protecting farmland and keeping it in use for farming is critical to achieving the state’s conservation goals and ensuring that these precious lands are available to feed communities and achieve climate solutions. The need to protect farmland is especially urgent in fast-growing regions of the state — including the Capital Region and the Hudson Valley — which are facing acute development pressure and conversion of working farms to non-agricultural uses.
To enable more farm families to permanently protect their land while ensuring it remains in farm production and affordable for future farmers, we respectfully request maintaining $25 million for Farmland Protection Implementation Grants in the FY 2027 State Budget. Along with our partners in the Alliance for New York’s Farmland, we were grateful for the program’s $4 million increase in the FY 2026 State Budget and look forward to a continuation of this significant funding.
Scenic Hudson is continuing our work to conserve farmland in the Hudson Valley’s Foodshed. Updates on this work are available at https://www.scenichudson.org/our-work/conservation/farms/.
As New York State continues to invest in the protection of natural lands, we respectfully request maintaining $42 million for the Open Space / Land Conservation line item in the FY 2027 State Budget. Conservation of land and water plays a significant role in achieving climate goals. We developed the Hudson Valley Conservation Strategy (HVCS) in part to identify the best potential conservation investments for achieving a resilient, functional, and productive landscape in the Hudson Valley. Guided by the HVCS and our existing conservation strategies, we have conserved more than 53,000 acres — including creating or enhancing more than 65 parks, preserves, and historic sites that provide places for people to relax, enjoy recreation, and be inspired by the valley’s natural beauty and heritage. Maintaining funding for open space and land conservation will allow Scenic Hudson and our regional and statewide partners to continue conserving the New York State land that matters most.
The FY 2026 State Budget allocated $500,000 via the EPF Open Space / Land Conservation account for the “reimbursement of costs incurred by land trusts in contract with, and prior to transfer of title to the State of New York for building removal and other site cleanup and preparation costs to prepare the parcel for sale to the State”. While we are grateful for this funding, we have seen the associated costs of just one project amount to $500,000. Increasing the allocation to $2 million in the FY 2027 State Budget would further empower the State’s land conservation partners to make needed improvements on the front end, reducing the amount of work to be undertaken by the State once it takes ownership of a property.
We join with the Land Trust Alliance (LTA) in giving thanks for the $3 million CPP allocation in the FY 2026 State Budget. The CPP is a successful public-private partnership between the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the LTA that offers competitive grants to New York land trusts to advance local land conservation projects. It is a model of efficiency: appropriated dollars are awarded annually in coordination with DEC, delivering tangible outcomes for communities and directly advancing New York’s Open Space Plan. Sustained funding for this program at $3 million in the FY 2027 State Budget will help New York land trusts conserve more local lands, providing climate, health, and economic benefits, and directly advance New York’s Open Space Plan.
More resources
Hudson River Estuary Action Agenda 2021-2025 (NYS DEC)
Sea Level Rise
The Climate-Resilient Agriculture Initiative: Cultivating Climate Solutions in the Hudson Valley
The Hudson Valley Conservation Strategy
Protecting the Pathways
Securing Fresh, Local Food for New York City and the Hudson Valley: A Foodshed Conservation Plan for the Region
What’s at stake?
Clean water — for drinking, fishing, swimming, and boating — is a human right. New York communities need at least $90 billion in funding to update water infrastructure, remove toxins from their drinking water, and address the impacts of climate change.
We appreciate the Governor’s proposal of $500 million for the Clean Water Infrastructure Act (CWIA), a direct response to the request from the New York Clean Water Coalition, of which Scenic Hudson is a member. However, we are concerned with the proposed allocation of $200 million for “water infrastructure projects necessary to promote housing preservation and development in regions throughout the state”. We recommend directing this funding to the CWIA instead, enabling a total of $700 million to tackle longstanding threats to clean water and the communities that depend on it.
More resources
A New Era for New York’s Water: An Analysis of Clean Water Infrastructure Act Spending
New Yorkers for Clean Water & Jobs: Clean Water Funding
Clean Water Coalition 2026 Action Agenda
What’s at stake?
Scenic Hudson is grateful to the Governor for proposing to maintain $200 million in capital funds for the New York State Parks system and $90 million in capital funds for the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) — both of which are essential for preserving outdoor spaces that provide so many benefits to community members. Given the ongoing need for funding for recreation areas across the state, we urge the Legislature to support the Governor’s proposal for the Parks Capital Fund and encourage increasing DEC capital funds to $100 million in the Fiscal Year 2027 State Budget.
This investment trajectory will further address climate change through smart management of state-owned sites and the implementation of renewable energy to help state lands become carbon neutral. It will also address the backlog of deferred maintenance, maintain the state’s leadership in connecting people to nature and outdoor recreation, and meet goals for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
More resources
What’s at stake?
Scenic Hudson supports the inclusion of language in the final Fiscal Year 2027 New York State (NYS) Budget that addresses the following:
The ASAP Act would help NYS meet its clean energy, affordability, and economic development goals by facilitating the rapid acceleration of our state’s solar build-out. Doubling the state’s goal for distributed solar to 20 gigawatts by 2035, and cutting through interconnection red tape, would make it cheaper and easier to bring community solar to New Yorkers.
The New York Native Plants Program bill would help conserve, promote, and enhance the native ecology of NYS by encouraging the use of native plants and ecologically-friendly methods and materials on state and local land.
Residential solar and energy storage are excellent avenues for NYS homeowners to contribute to the State’s goal of carbon-free electricity generation by 2040. However, high up-front costs often hinder or outright prevent homeowners from installing solar equipment. This bill would amend NYS tax law to increase the tax credit for qualified solar energy system equipment expenditures from $5,000 to $10,000, and allow owners of a new business to receive the tax credit as a refund. Making solar more affordable will help accelerate New York towards meeting the goals of the CLCPA.
Ulster County is home to thousands of acres of state parkland, including two recently-established state parks: Sojourner Truth State Park and Franny Reese State Park. Because both parks are owned by the State through the Palisades Interstate Parks Commission, the properties are effectively removed from local tax bases due to sovereign immunity. However, the State can still elect to pay local taxes on state land by designating the land as taxable through the Real Property Tax Law (RPTL). Amending RPTL § 532(e) to include all land owned by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in Ulster County on the list of places where land is taxable would bring Ulster County in line with a taxation practice common throughout NYS.
We applaud Governor Hochul’s commitment to funding innovative solutions for multiple stakeholder groups that tackle land, energy, and farm viability issues, and offer the following suggestions for how to best build out this program:
- New York has made important investments in agrivoltaics research, pilots, and demonstration projects. The time is now ripe for the State to put an incentive in place to help move agrivoltaics from the research-and-development stage into more widespread adoption. To do so, the Sun and Soil program should work to:
- define agrivoltaics to help determine which types of projects would qualify for the incentive;
- create an ongoing incentive, which could take different forms but should be flexible and appropriate to the size, scale, and type of project. It should also include some form of monitoring to ensure continued agricultural activity; and
- ensure that farmers who produce agricultural products as part of an agrivoltaics project do not lose the benefit of the Agricultural Assessment.
- The Sun and Soil Program should provide support for farmers seeking to deploy behind-the-meter solar for on-farm electrical use, which would enable farmers to address growing energy costs and pave the way for further on-farm electrification. Such support could be in the form of a tax credit, enhanced net metering, or low-interest loans.
- As the program evolves, attention should also be given to opportunities for pursuing electrification of farm equipment, charging station incentives, and on-farm energy conservation measures.
- As a member of the Agricultural Technical Working Group (A-TWG), Scenic Hudson joins a variety of agricultural and land organizations, solar developers, academic experts, and government officials in advising efforts to advancing renewable energy development across scales in a responsible way that supports New York State’s agricultural operations, lands, farmers, and communities.
More resources
New York State Agricultural Technical Working Group (A-TWG)
For more information please contact:
Carli Fraccarolli, Government Relations Manager
cfraccarolli@scenichudson.org
