ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday joined Catholics mourning Pope Francis, urging New Yorkers to carry on his call to protect the world’s most vulnerable from climate change a day after the pontiff’s death. Hochul last visited Vatican City on May 16, 2024, to speak at a three‑day climate summit where Francis called for urgent steps to blunt the worst effects of rising temperatures.
On Monday, Hochul released a statement saying the pope “embodied the values Christ taught us every day” by helping the poor, calling for peace, and respecting every person as “a child of God.” She added that he pressed world leaders to do more to prevent warming temperatures, that he “reminded us of our collective responsibility to protect this beautiful planet, our shared home.”
At the climate summit, Francis warned, “The refusal to act quickly to protect the most vulnerable who are exposed to climate change caused by human activity is a serious offense and a grave violation of human rights.” He asked leaders, “Are we working for a culture of life or a culture of death?”
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Almost one year ago, at the 2024 climate event with Pope Francis, Hochul positioned New York as a leader in handling cataclysmic climate risks like hurricanes and floods, and announced some $300 million in climate grants. But back in Albany in 2025, the governor faces renewed pressure over the Tropical Rainforest Economic and Environmental Sustainability Act—the TREES Act—meant to prevent New York from funding tropical deforestation. The previous version of the bill passed both houses of the legislature on the same day Hochul went to Rome.
The law would ban state and local agencies from buying certain tropical hardwoods like mahogany, rosewood, and ipe. “I hope that the governor—who this very day is speaking at the Vatican on the issue of climate leadership—will see this bill for what it is: an achievable, affordable, and necessary piece of critical climate legislation,” said bill sponsor and Senate Finance Chair Liz Krueger when it passed in the State Senate on May 16.
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Krueger, a Democrat representing New York City, cited U.N. data showing that the planet loses about 18 million acres of tropical forest a year—over half the size of New York State. She said that American companies drive most global deforestation through their supply chains.
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"The deforestation is destroying other countries around the world who, by the way—when their land is destroyed, when their environment is destroyed, when they have no alternative places to go, where are they going?" Kruger asked. "They're coming here. If you look at the deforestation in Venezuela, it's enormous. If you look at the damage that has been done to their economies, to their indigenous peoples, they have nowhere to survive in their own countries because of damage done because of our policies. And yet we object and wonder why they show up in the United States?"
Logging old-growth forests and creating logging roads in the Amazonian Rainforest has left much of the region deforested. Krueger argued that keeping New York out of the deforestation industry could curb greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and human rights abuses while protecting indigenous and local communities.
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And, "We urge Governor Hochul, Chair of the United States Climate Alliance, to follow through on her promise to Pope Francis and faith, politics, and science leaders to sign the New York TREES Act right away," said Alfred Brownell in a written statement from Krueger's office at the time. He's a Liberian environmentalist lawyer who works at Yale and won the 2019 Goldman Environmental Prize, or the "Green Nobel."
Agencies would have still been allowed to buy from the list of banned hardwoods if no safe or acceptable substitute were available. The bill also only affected companies that do businesses with the state, not private consumers.
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It would also have been the first anti-deforestation law in the U.S. Yet Hochul vetoed last year’s version on Dec. 21, 2024, saying, “While certain changes have been made, many fundamental problems remain in this bill,” and warning that its certification rules would overburden small businesses and put state services at risk.
After Hochul vetoed its predecessor, Krueger reintroduced the TREES Act—S7203—on April 3. If signed by the governor this time, the revamped TREES Act would ban the use of rainforest wood for public works, buildings, and state-managed lands, with narrow exemptions tied to specific grants.
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The bill language includes a long list of banned trees and wood and would require the state to update that ban list every three years, starting in 2029. It would phase out eki wood in MTA railroad ties by 2031 and greenheart wood on city ferries and major bridges by 2034.
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The bill also requires any state contractor earning $100 million or more a year to adopt a public forest‑protection policy, certifying that their goods did not contribute to tropical deforestation or degradation. This is the certification process that Hochul flagged as burdensome on small businesses in her veto.
To give a break to small businesses, the updated TREES Act would exempt until 2032 any contracts under $1 million and any firms with under $10 million in annual revenues. It would also carve out essential uses like packaging and make exceptions for grant-driven or centralized contracts with public notice.
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The new version's Supply Chain Transparency Assistance Program would also help small, medium‑size, minority‑ and women‑owned businesses meet the new standards. It would track where raw materials come from and make sure they meet ethics and sustainability requirements.
The bill would also expand the ban beyond hardwoods to cover “tropical forest‑risk commodities”—products whose harvesting or manufacture contribute to deforestation. That list would include palm oil, beef, coffee, cocoa, wood pulp, and paper grown on land cleared since 2022.
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Vendors who break the law would first receive a written notice and the opportunity to comply before eventually seeing their contracts voided altogether. Ultimately, they could be fined $1,000 or 20% of the value of the offending goods, whichever is greater.
Krueger has carried a version of the TREES Act in the State Senate since 2021. The Assembly sponsor in the previous legislative session was former Democratic Assemblymember Ken Zebrowski; so far this year, there's no corresponding Assembly bill for Senate Bill 7203.
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