Lawmakers Rail against State Climate Law; Green Groups Call State Report Inaccurate

By ERIC SANTOMAURO-STENZEL
ALBANY

Otsego County’s representatives in Albany are criticizing the state’s landmark climate law after a report released by the Governor Kathy Hochul administration said its costs of implementation would be in the thousands of dollars for oil and natural gas users. The report comes as the Hochul administration has been mulling ways to alter provisions in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, Politico has reported. Environmental groups are calling the report inaccurate, exaggerated and misleading.

The report from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority estimated that “Upstate oil and natural gas households would see costs in excess of $4,000 a year” by 2031 if the CLCPA is implemented as written. The three-page report said costs would fall particularly hard on those without the ability to install low emission technology, which is harder to obtain for a range of reasons.

Doreen Harris, NYSERDA president and chief executive officer, also wrote that the federal government’s pulling back of support for clean energy projects, the COVID-19 pandemic, and geopolitical issues increased costs more than were anticipated when the bill passed in 2019. However, the memo relies on estimates for a cap-and-invest program, a program Hochul has previously supported but which is not in place and the CLCPA does not require to meet its objectives of 100 percent zero-emission electricity by 2040.

“The Kathy Hochul cost burden is forcing New Yorkers to flee in search of more affordable states,” state Senator Peter Oberacker, whose district includes all of Otsego County and who is also running for congress, said in a statement. “On her watch, New York has had the highest rate of out-migration of any other state in the nation. That’s why I have been providing alternative solutions to her radical agenda for years now and will not stop until everyday New Yorkers can afford to live here.”

Republican Assemblymen Chris Tague, Brian Miller and Joe Angelino also issued statements.

Tague, whose district includes the northeastern half of the county and is running for Oberacker’s seat, said, “This memo confirms the devastating true costs of the Democrats’ radical Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which was a bad idea from the start and has been even more disastrous in practice.”

Saying “Albany Democrats and Governor Kathy Hochul are the ones who created this affordability crisis,” Tague called the 2019 law a “reckless downstate-imposed experiment” that is rushing “electrification without a plan.”

Miller, whose district includes Oneonta and most of the western part of Otsego County, called for an “all-of-the-above energy strategy that expands natural gas infrastructure, supports nuclear and renewables, invests in reliable generation, and protects consumer choice by opposing mandates such as the zero-emission school bus requirement and the ban on natural gas hookups in new construction.”

Miller said in the press release, “We can pursue cleaner energy goals, but we must do it in a way that keeps power affordable and the grid reliable.”

Angelino said in a letter to the editor in the “River Reporter” that the NYSERDA report “about the true cost of the CLCPA proves what I have been saying all along: the CLCPA will cause prices to skyrocket. Don’t just take it from me, but from NYSERDA, under their estimates, people could see their household costs increase to over $4,000 annually.”

Environmental groups and bill supporters have been critical of the report, saying it misrepresents the requirements of the law, departs significantly from prior NYSERDA and independent organization analysis, and does not properly account for the rising, unreliable costs of fossil fuels.

“New Yorkers are already facing record-high energy bills, thanks to rising gas costs that are only going up,” said Liz Moran, New York Policy Advocate at Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest environmental law organization. “Rolling back the climate law will do nothing to make life more affordable for the one in four families already behind on their bills, who the Governor now wants to force to pay for her procrastination. As the federal government decimates science-based climate protections every day, New Yorkers are depending on the Legislature to uphold the climate law and actually deliver real relief now.”

Democrat Michele Frazier, who, like Tague, is running for the 51st State Senate District, said in a statement that Tague’s comments to “The Daily Freeman” saying Democrats are “hell-bent on dismantling our reliable energy system” in the name of “climate extremism” misrepresents what the NYSERDA memo states.

“It also betrays a misunderstanding of how our energy system works, how renewable energy strategy fits in, and how failure to address the impacts of climate change harms our farms, businesses, and taxpayers who are forced to pay for the disruptions and damage caused by extreme weather events,” Frazier said.