Environmental Protection Agency\u00a0administrator Lee Zeldin on Monday announced\u00a0new federal “guidelines” for battery-energy storage facilities that encourage but do not mandate\u00a0local control in siting the controversial facilities.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a Hauppauge firehouse whose chief expressed “strong concerns and opposition” to a plant\u00a0there, Zeldin offered support for battery opponents’ concerns, but stopped short of a an order that would have put the facilities’\u00a0under federal government control.<\/p>\n
Asked by Newsday why the guidelines weren’t federal mandates, Zeldin said, “The siting, the zoning for these facilities, that\u2019s not something that gets any better by micromanaging from some agency in Washington DC.”<\/p>\n
Zeldin, a former Long Island legislator and U.S. congressman from Shirley, said the EPA was instead “here to help. We\u2019re putting out the guidelines based on our experiences, we\u2019re offering the technical expertise that we have if, God forbid, there is a lithium-ion fire. The next time there is a lithium-ion fire our agency is ready to be there to answer the call.”<\/p>\n
His comments disappointed some\u00a0who strongly oppose the battery facilities being proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Long Island Power Authority across the region. Nor did Zeldin’s guidelines\u00a0come close to matching the level of\u00a0opposition voiced by the event’s other speakers, including the\u00a0Hauppauge fire chief, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman\u00a0and state Sen. Mario Mattera (R-St. James).<\/p>\n
“Nothing was accomplished today,” said Fran Lunati, a Holtsville resident who has led community members in opposition to battery\u00a0plants in Islip and Brookhaven. Zeldin “didn\u2019t say anything we didn\u2019t already know,” she said, adding the state will “never hand” over control of siting the facilities locally.<\/p>\n
The new EPA guidelines, Zeldin said, say developers should “comply with state and local siting, zoning, marking and permitting requirements\u00a0to ensure site suitability.” They should also consider the “design of BESS units, battery chemistry, manufacture and quality assurance,” and “consult the most recent safety standards.” New York State released updated fire-code standards this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Blakeman, a\u00a0vocal opponent of battery “warehouses” and offshore wind farms, insisted siting of the plants already is a “regional issue … It\u2019s the whole Long Island together who don\u2019t want these battery warehouses in their communities.”<\/p>\n
Hauppauge Fire Commissioner Scott Monroe, expressing “strong concerns and opposition” to a 79-megawatt battery on Rabro Drive in Hauppauge, cited recent fires at such\u00a0facilities, the proposed KCE plant\u2019s proximity to homes, a church and a school, and the safety risks of attempting to control\u00a0potential fires.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s unreasonable to expect our volunteer firefighters who have families and jobs to handle a disaster of this magnitude,” he said, pointing to fires that can burn for days. He called on Zeldin to “lend the power of his office to try to stop the madness that is being forced on the Hauppauge community.”<\/p>\n
In a statement to Newsday after the event, Brian Hayes, chief executive of Key Capture Energy, the developer of the LIPA-contracted Hauppauge plant, said the company builds and operates battery plants to “the highest safety standards,” adding, “This project, along with all future projects, will be in full compliance with rigorous national and international safety testing as well as New York\u2019s recently updated fire code.” KCE plans at least six other facilities on Long Island.<\/p>\n
Battery energy storage plants are a key part of Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s plan for a carbon-free energy grid over the next two decades, but her plan, initially developed under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, is facing deep challenges.<\/p>\n
President\u00a0Donald Trump’s opposition to wind farms has hobbled the\u00a0plan to retire older fossil-fuel plants; solar-power installations were dealt a blow when Congress passed Trump’s “Big Beautiful”\u00a0bill that removes vital solar credits for home-solar installations by year end.<\/p>\n
Loss of subsidies for electric vehicles, heat pumps and other clean-energy sources recently forced the state to rethink its earlier plans to retire old gas plants by 2040, and the state is now reconsidering at least one new gas pipeline for the downstate region.<\/p>\n
Zeldin himself has been a point person for Trump\u2019s efforts to dismantle carbon-reduction goals<\/p>\n
This summer he proposed repealing all greenhouse-gas emissions standards for the power sector and doing away with amendments to the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that “directly result in coal-fired power plants having to shut down,” the EPA announced.<\/p>\n
Zeldin\u2019s EPA charged the regulations have “imposed massive costs on coal-, oil-, and gas-fired power plants, raising the cost of living for American families, imperiling the reliability of our electric grid, and limiting American energy prosperity.”<\/p>\n
In communications before the event, the EPA indicated\u00a0the new battery guidelines would fill the “safety gap left by partisan fast-tracking” of the facilities by leveraging EPA’s\u00a0own “unmatched lithium-battery expertise to deliver America’s first federal BESS safety guidance to better protect clean air, land, and water nationwide.”<\/p>\n
Hochul’s office on Monday took aim at the former Long Island congressman.<\/p>\n
“Lee Zeldin\u2019s job is to protect the environment, but he has been doing anything but that,”\u00a0Hochul spokesman Ken Lovett said\u00a0in a statement. “His continued assault on clean energy and his push for rollbacks on environmental protections will hurt everyone in his home state of New York and across the country and fly in the face of the federal government\u2019s claim of wanting U.S. energy independence.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lovett said Zeldin’s plan “risks leaving New York’s economy behind and forcing New Yorkers to pay.”<\/p>\n
LIPA in a statement said “safety is always our highest priority,” including for battery plants which are “critical to ensure electric grid reliability …”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Most Long Island towns have moratoriums on battery storage plants, following fires at three\u00a0facilities in the state in 2023, including one in East Hampton that burned for more than 30 hours. Pointing to a massive fire at one of the nation’s largest plants in Monterey, California, earlier this year, opponents say they should not be sited in residential neighborhoods, schools or close to vital highways.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Christina Kramer, a Long Beach resident who heads up the activist\u00a0group Protect Our Coast Long Island, NY. and attended Zeldin’s event, said best solution to siting of the plants may\u00a0be\u00a0a law that prevents battery plants\u00a0from being sited five to 10 miles from homes and business districts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” while limiting subsidies for solar, wind and other green energy, carved out a reprieve for battery facilities. Under the law, large-scale battery facilities must be completed by 2033 in order to receive a lucrative federal tax credit\u00a0\u2014 considerably longer than limits put on other green-energy projects\u00a0\u2014 through there are new\u00a0limits on foreign content in the batteries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n\tMark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Environmental Protection Agency\u00a0administrator Lee Zeldin on Monday announced\u00a0new federal “guidelines” for battery-energy storage facilities that encourage but do…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-92642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}