TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) \u2014 New York State lawmakers, including Democratic Assemblymember William Conrad, are urging Governor Kathy Hochul to halt the state’s upcoming all-electric building mandate, citing concerns about rising energy costs and grid reliability issues.<\/p>\n
Assemblymember Conrad has written a letter to the governor requesting a pause on policies that would require all new homes and buildings under seven stories to use electric appliances, including heat pumps, starting January 1.<\/p>\n
“We’re in a real bad situation that we need to address immediately,” Conrad said.<\/p>\n
The assemblyman is warning about the state’s all-electric buildings mandate set to take effect on New Year’s Day, pointing to energy supply concerns.<\/p>\n
“We have a growing amount of energy demand and we only have so much supply,” Conrad said.<\/p>\n
Conrad believes the mandate needs to be reassessed, citing a recent report from the New York Independent System Operator that highlights future reliability issues with the state’s power grid.<\/p>\n
“Right now, based on future forecasts of energy yields, we are in a desperate spot,” Conrad said. “We are going to need about 5,000 megawatts of energy in the next five years that we don’t have.”<\/p>\n
WATCH: Lawmakers in New York State push to pause all-electric building mandate amid energy concerns<\/p>\n
Lawmakers in New York State push to pause all-electric building mandate amid energy concerns<\/p>\n
In his letter to Hochul, Conrad is asking the governor to pause the mandate and establish a task force to examine reliability issues and cost impacts for consumers.<\/p>\n
“Unless we start to take a look, a good, hard look at these things, costs are going to continue to go up, reliability is going to be an issue, and we won’t meet our carbon goals either,” Conrad said.<\/p>\n
Conrad says he has received support from across the state, including from Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes. Her office confirmed Tuesday that she will co-sign the letter requesting a pause to the mandate.<\/p>\n
Gov. Hochul recently addressed concerns about the mandate during a visit to Rochester.<\/p>\n
“You know we just received correspondence from some upstate members of the legislature, so we’re looking at that seriously,” Hochul said.<\/p>\n
“I’m going to look at this with a very realistic approach and do what I can because my number one focus is affordability right now, because New Yorkers are suffering too much,” Hochul said.<\/p>\n
“We have to have, I think, a moderate approach because we need to meet that moment, and right now this moment is not ideal for this situation,” Conrad said.<\/p>\n
Conrad’s office says his letter currently has 14 co-signers from across the state, with more expected by Friday. The letter will be sent to the governor next Monday.<\/p>\n
The governor’s office did not respond to requests for further comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) \u2014 New York State lawmakers, including Democratic Assemblymember William Conrad, are urging Governor Kathy Hochul…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13911,4762,895,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-20609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-electric","9":"tag-energy","10":"tag-governor-kathy-hochul","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-new-york-state","15":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20609","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=20609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}