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The ambitious targets set by 2019’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, along with subsequent acknowledgements that its aggressive timeline will likely not be met, can cloud an important fact: New York has been making progress.

Since the CLCPA was enacted, the state has added clean energy and invested in initiatives to help as many New Yorkers as possible participate in the transition away from fossil fuels. We’ve also added green-energy jobs. No question, there’s much, much more to be done — and that’s why we can’t afford to backslide.

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But even as the state is facing headwinds from a federal administration that’s openly hostile to clean energy, the state appears to be pulling back vital support.

In April, the state Public Service Commission cut $271 million of previously authorized funding for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's NY-Sun program, which offers incentives to help people invest in rooftop solar and join community solar plans, along with a network of contractors to handle the installation. The PSC’s reasoning seems to be that the program didn't need all that money to meet its 10-gigawatt goal for distributed solar projects. (We say........

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