“Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” (CLCPA) continues to evolve in the Empire State
A weekly COLUMN by NY State Senator Tom O’Mara,
The State Energy Board released a final “2025 New York State Energy Plan” last week that will now serve as the guidepost for the direction of this state’s energy policies and strategies moving forward.
The positive news is that the new plan at least acknowledges what many of us have been saying since before the enactment of New York’s current strategy under the “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” (CLCPA) enacted in 2019. From the beginning, opponents of the CLCPA, including myself, have called out its pitfalls and shortcomings. Our consistent warnings about affordability, feasibility, and reliability have largely fallen on deaf ears among New York’s key decision-makers.
Until now.
The updated plan states, “The Plan embraces a much-needed all-of-the-above strategy: hydropower, solar, onshore and offshore wind, our existing nuclear fleet, advanced nuclear, energy storage with the strongest safety standards in the nation, efficiency, electrification, bioenergy, demand flexibility, and, where needed, modern gas infrastructure to keep the system stable during the transition…This Plan also recognizes a simple truth: energy policy is economic policy. Our ability to attract the jobs of the future depends on reliable, affordable, increasingly clean power.”
In other words, the new plan moves toward what our Senate Republican Minority Conference, among others, has long stressed: the need to chart a different course. The need to refocus on affordability, feasibility, and reliability. The need for commonsense alternatives to current CLCPA mandates and timelines while providing relief to taxpayers, ensuring the reliability of the grid, and ensuring a diverse energy portfolio that will keep energy options affordable and accessible for the long term.
That’s the positive news. Unfortunately, what’s left unaddressed in the new plan are numerous CLCPA mandates that will continue to fuel uncertainty, remain unimaginably costly for ratepayers and local economies, and that, very simply, are unworkable under existing timelines. Unless and until Governor Hochul and the Democrat majorities in the Senate and Assembly get serious about substantially revising these mandates – or better yet, in my view, eliminating them altogether – New York State’s energy strategy will go on as unaffordable and unreliable for most New Yorkers.
I don’t believe that the Democrat-controlled Legislature will act on their own initiative. The Governor wields the most power in the annual budget process. It is imperative that she include in her Executive Budget next year, rational modifications to the various energy mandates, currently in law, that are driving up our energy costs. The Governor’s budget will be unveiled in late January.
Groups that have long shared our warnings over the CLCPA mandates and timelines agreed that while the new plan acknowledges the need for a more practical and realistic direction, it still falls short – far short — in addressing what’s impractical and unrealistic about current policies.
From the Independent Powers Producers of New York (IPPNY), “It is paramount that ALL possible solutions be on the table as the State transitions to a cleaner energy future, and it is encouraging to see this approach within the State Energy Plan. This investment includes a mix of nuclear units, fossil fuels, and renewables, along with the need to develop additional zero emission sources. Strong statements of an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy are important; however, it is even more critical to ensure that market signals and regulatory paradigms match that sentiment in attracting further investment. Making energy clean, affordable, and reliable should be the priority, but it may not come as quickly as the State would like due to the need for increased clarity and certainty on the State’s policies to carry out the Plan. There is no shortage of private developers that want to invest in New York, but the State needs to realize that it is competing with other states and countries to attract investments in new technologies. Further, New York deserves credit for achieving emissions milestones over the last two and a half decades, such as making Upstate carbon free…Today’s adopted Energy Plan provides a sensible initial stride towards our energy future, but more work must be done to implement it properly.”
From Upstate United, “We are encouraged that the State Energy Plan (SEP) acknowledges our long-standing concerns with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act’s (CLCPA) impact on affordability and grid reliability. While we appreciate that the governor, her office, and state agency leaders now recognize these realities, the SEP does not supersede existing law. An all of the above approach is necessary; however, it is not sufficient. What we need at this pivotal moment is to amend the law so that it is consistent with what the plan recognizes to be true: the state will need continued fossil fuel generation to support energy demand. Until we address the unrealistic mandates intended to comply with the CLCPA, the legal standing of our own laws, along with our state’s ability to attract necessary investment, will remain in limbo.”
The CLCPA’s “All-Electric Buildings Act” mandate remains in play, for example. The “All-Electric School Bus” mandate stays in place as a major concern for local school districts and local property taxpayers throughout this state who have made it clear that they can’t afford it and that it simply won’t work under current requirements.
The key takeaway from New York’s new energy plan? It’s talking in the right direction while, at the same time, it keeps walking in the wrong direction. It attempts to offer solutions while keeping some of the biggest parts of the problem in place.
