Amid ongoing state budget negotiations, both houses in the New York state Legislature are sounding off concerning the conversation around rising utility costs and the 2019 climate law.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe the second package is necessary to continue our work to ease the burden of some of the highest utility costs in the nation,\u201d said Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday,\u00a0Stewart-Cousins introduced a new package of proposals they say will help ease some of the pressure on the wallets of New Yorkers whose paychecks are struggling to keep up with rising utility costs.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers said these proposals will build off momentum Senate Democrats built earlier this year when they passed a package specifically addressing transparency to the rate making process.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally hoping that, this year we can get the Assembly and governor onboard to share our priorities and to move forward with turning some of these great legislative ideas into law,\u201d said Democratic state Sen. Kevin Parker, chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Telecommunications.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers said the proposals set forth in this package are geared toward increasing bill transparency and increasing customer protections.<\/p>\n
This includes prohibiting utility services from being terminated during extreme weather events, providing timely and direct financial relief to ratepayers impacted by utility misconduct, and automatically re-enrolling households and individuals who continue to meet the requirements for the Home Energy Assistance Program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are putting forward a bold vision for what affordability in the energy space can look like, and when the federal government certainly is not stepping up to address these issues, it\u2019s important that the state legislature is doing that,\u201d said state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez.<\/p>\n
Senate Republicans are also sounding off, accusing the Senate majority of rejecting measures to provide New Yorkers relief from utility bills specifically after proposals from GOP Sens. Tom O\u2019Mara and Rob Rolison were rejected on Wednesday, including one that would have provided a one-year utility bill tax and surcharge holiday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Senate Republican Conference has repeatedly offered alternative plans and proposals that we believe are more focused on affordability, feasibility, and reliability, and which, if enacted, would better protect ratepayers from the ever-rising costs they’re struggling under now,\u201d said Sen. O\u2019Mara, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance. \u201cIt’s irresponsible for New York State to go on asking ratepayers to bear the burden of a strategy that’s not working and that won’t work as it stands. New York’s ratepayers need relief now and Albany Democrats keep saying no.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverywhere we go, the message is the same \u2014 families and small businesses are struggling to keep up with their utility bills, where taxes, fees, and surcharges are often more expensive than the energy usage itself,\u201d said Sen. Rolison. \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019ve once again advanced this amendment to suspend these costly charges and deliver immediate relief to ratepayers. We\u2019ve put this forward before, and we\u2019ll keep fighting for it because the urgency is only growing. This is a practical, commonsense solution that meets people where they are, and I won\u2019t stop pushing until we get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Assembly, some lawmakers held a press conference Wednesday voicing their concerns over what they call Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s \u201cexecutive overreach in the budget process.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is also something that we think is a bigger problem than just this year,\u201d said Democratic Assemblymember Emily Gallagher. \u201cThis is a systemic problem within the Legislature in the way that it was written and we\u2019re calling on the public to help support us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawmakers are accusing the governor of a demonstrated pattern of holding up the budget process for her own priorities, leaving little time for non-budget legislation.<\/p>\n
Assemblymembers said this year, the governor\u2019s focus is using her power to \u201cgut the climate law and double down on fossil fuels, even as the war in Iran\u201d is causing skyrocketing prices that are \u201ccosting New Yorkers hundreds of millions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that right now we\u2019re seeing at the federal level we\u2019re seeing attacks on our democracy,\u201d said Democratic Assemblymember Dana Levenberg. \u201cWhen we are also feeling that our process here in the state government has suddenly left the sunshine and is no longer the democratic process that we kind of signed up for when we ran for office in the legislature, we really need to call a spade a spade.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson from Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s office responded with a statement to Capital Tonight,\u00a0saying in part: “Burying your head in the sand and ignoring the challenges New York and other states are all facing is not leadership,\u201d said Ken Lovett, Senior Communications Advisor on Energy and Environment. \u201cReckless policies coming out of Washington D.C. are driving prices up across the board, and New Yorkers cannot be expected to shoulder higher costs. Governor Hochul is pushing for common-sense reforms that will ensure New York remains a national climate and clean energy leader while prioritizing affordability for all New Yorkers and businesses.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid ongoing state budget negotiations, both houses in the New York state Legislature are sounding off concerning the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[109,116,9,24,55,54,49,12,5304,56,112,87,4281,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-198795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-new-york-state","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nicole-neuman","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-ny-state-of-politics","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-state-budget","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}