New York\u2019s State Energy Planning Board is bowing a little to reality, admitting carbon-based fuels are vital for the foreseeable future and pushing to delay their phase-out.<\/p>\n
Yet the 15-year energy plan the board just adopted<\/a>, with Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s blessing, still imposes heavy green-agenda costs on New Yorkers.<\/p>\n This blueprint \u201crecognizes a simple truth,\u201d says the gov: \u201cEnergy policy is economic policy. Our ability to attract the jobs of the future depends on reliable, affordable, increasingly clean power.\u201d<\/p>\n The plan, she claims, \u201cembraces a much-needed all-of-the-above strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet it, and she, still deny many truths.<\/p>\n First, this is a \u201csome-of-the-above-but-no-fracking\u201d strategy, since the plan doesn\u2019t even mention that key method of extracting fuel from the state\u2019s gas-rich Southern Tier. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n And much of what it leaves in should be scrapped \u2014 such as demanding six gigawatts of solar energy, several wind-power projects and Hochul\u2019s $1 billion Sustainable Future Program to decarbonize buildings and otherwise burn cash in the name of fighting climate change.<\/p>\n All that will hit New Yorkers\u2019 pocketbooks hard, without providing reliable new sources of energy.<\/p>\n Nor does the plan change any laws, which dictate deadlines for curbing emissions and switching to renewable energy for electricity; the board\u2019s implicit attempt to reset those dates will surely meet with lawsuits from elitist climate warriors who couldn\u2019t give a fig about costs or blackout risks.<\/p>\n Even though nothing New York does will shift the global climate one iota.<\/p>\n Nor should anyone trust Hochul to stick with this slight retreat from insanity: Her 2024 pause of the hated \u201ccongestion\u201d tolls ended soon after that year\u2019s elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n This new \u201cpause\u201d comes with utility bills soaring (as electric rates in New York are already 58% higher than the US average) and blackouts looming in advance of her own run for reelection in November \u2014 a campaign she means to focus on \u201caffordability.\u201d<\/p>\n Hochul doesn\u2019t dare inflict too much pain on the voters before they go to the polls.<\/p>\n