Republicans Push Against State Renewable Energy Siting Authority

By ERIC SANTOMAURO-STENZEL
ALBANY

Republicans in Albany, in large part spearheaded by representatives for the Otsego County area, are criticizing the state authority responsible for siting large renewable energy projects. The officials say they want to protect upstate farmland. It comes amidst community concerns about rising electricity costs, a late state budget where debates over the state’s climate law have grown, and local resistance to solar projects.

“New York’s so-called green energy experiment is quietly paving over the very greenspace that it claims to protect,” Assemblyman Chris Tague, who is running for the 51st State Senate seat, said at an April 17 press conference in Schoharie County.

Tague called the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act “another Albany power play sold with lofty promises and unrealistic emissions goals.”

Assemblyman Joe Angelino, Assembly 102nd District candidate and former Representative Marc Molinaro, Nassau County Executive and gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman, social media influencer Alexandra Fasulo, and more were present. The speakers criticized the New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Transmission, which is responsible for siting renewable energy projects of 25 megawatts or larger and under a 2024 law largely supersedes local municipalities in approving projects.

Multiple officials have thanked Fasulo for bringing attention to the issue on social media. She recently founded the nonprofit American Land Rescue Fund. Its mission is to use “the power of law to defend America’s farmland, wildlife, and open spaces from industrial exploitation disguised as ‘green energy.’”

By passing the Renewable Action through Project Interconnection and Deployment Act which empowered ORES, supportive lawmakers intended to assist the state in meeting the objectives of the CLCPA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition the state to clean, renewable energy to fight climate change. The bill required developers to gather nonbinding input from local communities, a public comment period on the proposal, and provided for ORES to consult with other state agencies in assessing environmental impacts of projects.

According to the law, if a municipality argues that the project does not conform to its local laws and regulations or public comments raise a “substantive and significant issue,” hearings may be held and ORES ultimately determines the outcome. ORES may elect not to apply local laws if they are “unreasonably burdensome in view of the CLCPA targets, and the environmental benefits.”

State Republicans’ push leverages much of the reason for ORES’s existence: resistance to renewable energy projects at the local level.

“Upstate New York, it’s our farmland. It’s our open space. It’s our way of life,” State Senator and NY-19 congressional candidate Peter Oberacker said of ORES in an April 30 social media post. “And right now we’re seeing more and more of that pristine land targeted for enormous solar projects without any real input from the people who actually live here.”

In early April, the State Senate Republican Conference sent a letter to then-ORES Executive Director Zeryai Hagos with requests for comprehensive information about projects in ORES’ jurisdiction and standards they apply for permitting.

The letter said the group does not intend to oppose energy development. “However,” efforts to “responsibly” grow, innovate, and diversify the state’s energy supply must not come at the expense of “natural and agricultural resources” or “the will of the citizens who will live next door to these projects.”