Kingston, NY – A recent report jointly authored by the Public Service Commission (PSC) and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) confirms that New York is not on track to meet its climate goals, enshrined in the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). Assemblymember Shrestha will host two town halls next week—September 17th at SUNY New Paltz, and September 18th at Bard College—to review the status of the goals, the challenges, and why she is urging the Governor to direct the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to use its new authority to build at least 15 gigawatts of publicly-owned renewable energy by 2030.

“The impacts of climate change are already here. For example, we recently learned from the DOT that newly paved roads, which cost taxpayers approximately half a million dollars a mile per lane, saw a high rate of cracking because of an increasing trend of larger and more frequent fluctuations between high and low temperatures. The impacts aren’t isolated by means. If left unaddressed, climate change will devastate food security, overwhelm our hospitals, undermine our workforce, and disrupt our economy in just the way the Covid-19 pandemic did. Which means that now is not the time to second-guess our targets for renewable energy and emission reductions, as the Governor and the business sector have started to do. Now is also not the time to solely rely on private development projects that have high cancellation rates despite passing costs to ratepayers.

We’re urging the Governor to use the commonsense solution we already have: last year, we enacted the Build Public Renewables Act through the budget, which authorizes and directs the New York Power Authority to build enough public renewables to meet our climate goals. As NYPA prepares to release a draft plan in early October, we’re asking the Governor to direct NYPA to build at least 15 gigawatts of public renewables by 2030 so that we can get back on track to meet our goals, increase energy independence, save ratepayers money, use the law’s REACH program to cut utility bills in half for those who need it the most, bring federal dollars to the State through the Inflation Reduction Act, create 25,000 green jobs and invest in training, and close down polluting peaker plants that are responsible for high asthma rates in communities that have them.

In its latest rate case filing, Central Hudson says it expects that uncollectible expenses will increase by approximately $14 million during the Rate Year. When there’s such a huge amount of arrears, all of the ratepayers pay a price for it because it increases the costs as Central Hudson borrows debt. Ambitiously building public renewables would save ratepayers money in three ways: (1) increase the overall supply of affordable energy, helping to bring down the supply portion of the bill, (2) decrease theneed to fund private projects that pass cost to ratepayers, and (3) close the arrear gap by using revenues from public renewablesto fund automatic bill discounts for low-income households in disadvantaged communities, as the enacted law requires.

We’ve already done the hard part of passing the law. Now, we want to see its proper implementation.”

RSVPs to the two town halls can be made at: https://bit.ly/sarahana-climate