(The Center Square) — A new analysis suggesting that New York’s yet-to-be-implemented climate change law would dramatically drive up costs for consumers is fueling demands to scrap the proposed mandates.
A memo released by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority estimates the greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-invest requirements of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which is pending action by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, would cost the state’s energy consumers an average of $2,300 to $4,000 more a year.
“Current estimates indicate that the most impacted households — upstate, two-car households that rely on heating oil — would likely experience gross cost impacts in excess of $4,100 annually,” Doreen M. Harris, the agency’s president and CEO, wrote in the memo.
Overall, the agency said plans to speed up clean energy deployment in New York to meet the CLCPA’s targets are currently “infeasible” because of a “lack of market capacity” to deliver the proposed volume of renewable energy, electric vehicle sales, heat pump and building shell deployments, among other requirements.
Meanwhile, the law’s requirements on homeowners and businesses to reduce fossil fuel reliance would impose heavy burdens on New York households, especially those unable to install lower-emissions technologies.
The report noted that New York lawmakers who approved the law in 2019 “could not have foreseen the substantial reversal in the federal policy landscape, the disruptive and lingering impacts of COVID-19 and the subsequent supply chain crisis, the return of an inflationary economy, and the influence of geopolitical events on energy costs generally.”
Without changes to the law, by 2031, it would drive up the price of gasoline in New York by an estimated $2.23 per gallon on top of current prices as fossil fuel companies pass along the costs of the state’s proposed cap-and-invest program onto consumers.
“Addressing this cost escalation is essential to deliver a policy that supports affordability and economic competitiveness and is necessary to ensure continued progress on decarbonization policy,” Harris wrote in the memo.
Release of the memo comes as Hochul — a Democrat who is running for reelection this year — makes the case for changes to the 2019 climate law, signed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, which requires New York to reduce its excess greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels.
Republicans have filed a proposal that would require a $2 billion surplus sitting in NYSERDA’s Clean Energy Fund or any unspent funds collected by utilities be sent back to ratepayers as a bill credit.
Assemblyman Karl Brabenec, R-Deerpark, said NYSERDA’s memo “is yet another sign of the unfortunate reality working families across our state are facing” amid skyrocketing energy costs.
“Instead of allowing consumers to have a choice in how they heat their homes and cook their food, this governor pushed rushed, unrealistic, and unaffordable mandates that drive up costs for ratepayers,” he said in a statement. “Until we implement an all-of-the-above energy approach, we will continue to see the consequences of these radical policies.”
