Renewable Action Through Project Interconnection and Deployment Act<\/a>, along with mandates stemming from the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, were anticipated to streamline renewable energy projects.<\/p>\nInstead, they said they\u2019ve laid the foundation for the large-scale conversion of farmland into industrial energy sites, many with solar panels, they said often have little to no benefit to their surrounding local communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew York\u2019s so-called green energy experiment is quietly paving over the very green space that it claims to protect,\u201d said Republican state Assemblymember Chris Tague. \u201cDemocrats ran through the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act late into the night at the very end of the 2019 legislative session. They acted like they had to pass it to find out what was in. No real debate, minimal public input, just another Albany power play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans are calling for what they believe is a more balanced \u201call-of-the-above energy strategy.\u201d This includes renewables alongside nuclear and natural gas to help preserve the state\u2019s agricultural resources and green space, affordability, and reliability.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgriculture has been a way of life for generations in this state,\u201d said Assembly Minority Leader Ed Ra. \u201cThere are nearly seven million acres of farmland in New York. We\u2019re watching that decrease quickly. New York has lost approximately 365,000 acres of farmland and 2,800 farms in the five years between 2017 and 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to Thursday\u2019s press conference, a group of GOP lawmakers sent a letter to the New York Public Service Commission to address their concerns. In their letter, lawmakers warn that the CLCPA\u2019s mandates, which include 70% renewable electricity by 2030 and a zero-emission grid by 2040, are proving to be \u201cincreasingly difficult to achieve in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFamilies and businesses are already struggling with skyrocketing energy costs, and the CLCPA is making affordability worse, not better,\u201d said GOP Assemblyman Matt Simpson. \u201cWe cannot continue pretending these mandates are working when they threaten reliable power and drive up bills for hardworking New Yorkers. It\u2019s time for honesty about the real costs and for the Legislature to reconsider unworkable timelines before ratepayers pay the price.\u201d<\/p>\n
State Senate Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Pete Harckam said there is a cost to not implementing the CLCPA.<\/p>\n
“By doubling down on solar as opposed to doubling down on fossil fuels yes we can meet the goals when it comes to clean energy,\u201d said Harckam.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s event comes on the heels of the Democratic state Snate majority introducing a new bill package on Wednesday they said is aimed at delivering relief for New Yorkers, including increasing bill transparency, increasing customer protections and help with paying their utility bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis bill would make re-enrollment for HEAP an automatic uniform re-enrollment in every local service district in the state for those who maintain their eligibility,\u201d said Democratic state Sen. Chris Ryan.<\/p>\n
Democratic lawmakers said this package will help build off the momentum Senate Democrats built earlier this year when they passed a package specifically addressing transparency to the rate making process.<\/p>\n
Capital Tonight reached out to Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s office for comment for this report and has not heard back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican candidate for governor Bruce Blakeman and Republican attorney general candidate Saritha Komatireddy are advocating for local control…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[109,116,38490,3242,9,24,55,54,49,12,5304,56,112,87,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-200149","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-decision-2026","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-city-news","16":"tag-new-york-state","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-nicole-neuman","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-ny-state-of-politics","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200149","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=200149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}