NY State Senator Tom O’Mara’s weekly COLUMN,
When Governor Kathy Hochul convened a two-day “Future Energy Economy Summit” in Syracuse last September, it raised hopes that New York State would finally begin, in earnest, a long-overdue rethinking of the future of energy for all New Yorkers.
Fast forward nearly one year later and the Hochul administration is now out with a new “Draft 2025 Energy Plan” that, following a series of public hearings and a required public comment period, will be used to develop an updated, final state energy plan. You can find out more and review the full draft plan here: https://energyplan.ny.gov/Plans/Draft-2025-Energy-Plan.
It’s potentially a critical turning point for this state’s energy future. The need to rethink New York’s existing energy plan has been gaining traction for several years now as doubts have steadily increased over the Albany Democrats’ strategy to impose radical and sweeping clean energy mandates following the enactment of the Climate Leadership and Protection Act (CLCPA) in 2019. The state’s Climate Action Council (CAC), established through the CLCPA, issued its action report in December 2022, a year and four months after Governor Hochul was sworn in as New York’s chief executive.
Many have warned from the start, me included, that the failure to put forth a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the costs of implementing these mandates under their prescribed timelines doomed the entire effort. We have questioned the affordability, feasibility, and reliability of the strategy for ratepayers and taxpayers, business and industry, and local economies. And perhaps most importantly, Why wasn’t this done before passage of the CLCPA or the plan of the CAC?
We have raised concerns for good reasons. The newly released “Draft 2025 Energy Plan” clearly acknowledges that the CLCPA timeline the state has been pushing at breakneck speed to achieve 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and zero emissions by 2040 isn’t realistic and can’t be met under the plan with current technologies as it stands.
According to the “Draft 2025 Energy Plan” report, “All major fuels used in New York today will continue to meaningfully contribute to the state’s energy mix through 2040, including electricity, natural gas and petroleum fuels…Continued investment in all fuel systems is necessary to assure safe and reliable energy services, in particular to meet peak day needs and to increase resilience.”
The key bottom line here is that the “Draft 2025 Energy Plan” could mark the beginning of a vital realignment, one that heeds the widespread warnings over affordability, feasibility, and reliability that have long been voiced by our Senate and Assembly Republican conferences, as well as by the New York Independent Systems Operator (NYSIO), State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, Empire Center for Public Policy, and other independent watchdogs. But will it?
“The recent extreme heat has put serious stress on the electric grid, providing a timely wakeup call that New York needs a realistic approach to energy planning to ensure that our grid transition remains reliable and affordable,” said Gavin Donohue, president of Independent Power Producers of New York. “As a member of the Climate Action Council, I have been calling for discussions such as this for years and it is great to see a productive meeting on the state’s energy future occur.”
The ”Draft 2025 Energy Plan” does, in fact, offer a long-overdue wakeup call and points toward taking at least some steps toward a more commonsense, realistic approach to energy planning.
Will it produce the appropriate, responsible actions out of Albany? There’s still plenty to guard against. Advocates, inside and outside state government, urging New York leaders to hold the line on the current, radical course of a Green New Deal-type strategy remain powerful and the Albany Democrats have consistently cowed to their demands.
We can’t afford to have the new, final draft energy plan wind up being merely a replay of what’s taken place up to now. In the words of one independent energy analyst who has closely followed the state’s energy policies and politics (https://pragmaticenvironmentalistofnewyork.blog/), “My biggest Energy Plan concern is whether the Hochul Administration will use the Energy Plan process as an opportunity to consider the implications of the observed transition so far and if the advice of stakeholders in its stakeholder process will be treated as an opportunity to improve the transition.”
It is very concerning to me that the planning board consists entirely of the governor’s cabinet as voting members. One outside entity, perhaps the most important of all, NYISO, which is responsible for managing the supply and demand of the state’s electricity, doesn’t even have a vote on the board’s decisions.
Key questions are being raised. Will the state put forth a straightforward cost-benefit analysis that provides New York ratepayers with the true costs of what they’re facing if the state attempts to meet existing CLCPA targets? Bear in mind that the unknown costs of all of this will be borne by New York ratepayers, which is already taking place under the massive rate hikes being imposed by NYSEG, RG&E, and National Grid across our region, with much higher increases to come. The PSC, consisting entirely of gubernatorial appointees, just this week approved another massive rate increase at National Grid’s request, while NYSEG & RG&E have rate increase requests presently pending before it.
Will there be immediate, specific actions to revise, significantly delay, or eliminate current CLCPA mandates, such as the all-electric school bus mandate? Will public input make a difference this time around? Or is the underlying goal of the entire exercise to produce a politically expedient document aimed at ensuring Governor Hochul’s political future in what’s shaping up to be a tough election year next November?
Public hearings on the “Draft 2025 Energy Plan” begin on Wednesday, September 3, in Buffalo. Additional information on the hearing process can be found at: https://energyplan.ny.gov/Get-Involved/Hearings. Written comments will be accepted through October 6 and you can find out more on that process here: https://energyplan.ny.gov/Get-Involved/Comment.
While there’s a sense of a shift in short- and long-term thinking on one of the central challenges facing New York’s future, will it produce a turnaround? That’s yet another key question moving forward and it bears watching. That’s the case especially when it comes to the undeniable need for dispatchable power and the role that nuclear power, both small- and large scale nuclear, to address ever-rising electricity demands, including to meet what experts are projecting will be enormous and growing demands for artificial intelligence, data storage, and other technology services — and the increasing demands of electric vehicles and home/building heating mandates –expected to result in record-high energy consumption in the near future.
Our Senate Republican Minority Conference, among others, has put forth a comprehensive set of proposals to chart a different course. We have called for refocusing on affordability, feasibility, and reliability. We have offered what we believe are commonsense alternatives to delay the CLCPA mandates while providing relief to taxpayers, ensuring the reliability of the grid, and, especially now, ensuring a diverse energy portfolio that will keep energy options affordable and accessible for the long term.
Are we finally facing a “back to the drawing board” moment on the CLCPA timeline and other climate mandates? Are we about to undertake an honest, open, long-awaited, and desperately needed public discussion on the realities of where we’re headed? Will it be followed by meaningful action out of Albany?
Again, why was this not done before embarking on this utopian dream? I continue to believe that Merlin himself does not possess enough magic to pull this off.
