Throughout this century, New York Democrats have been imposing so-called environment policies that have been driving electric and natural gas prices through the roof.
For example, six weeks after Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., was elected to a second term in 2014, he banned hydraulic fracking.
Cuomo, a noted micro-managing control freak, claimed his environmental experts made the call. No one believed he "had nothing to do with" the decision.
Blasting the governor, state Sen. Cathy Young, R-Dist. 57-Jamestown, said, "Our rural communities are dying a slow, painful, poverty-stricken death and hope is scarce.
"Governor Cuomo’s decision to ban exploration of our natural gas resources is a punch in the gut to the Southern Tier.”
Even former Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., agreed that Cuomo was making a mistake.
"If you put the right regulations in place, you can protect the environment," he said.
"There’s no form of energy produced today that doesn’t have potential to cause environmental problems."
Rendell was right.
As thousands are working for fracking companies in thriving Western Pennsylvania and providing cheap fuel, the Binghampton region, over the border, is economically depressed.
Cuomo's other misguided crusade: the 2021 closing of the Indian Point nuclear plant in Westchester County. When Cuomo shut the facility, which provided 25% of the electricity for New York City and the Hudson Valley, he had no back-up plan to replace the clean energy power.
As a result, not only did New Yorkers became more dependent on what the environmentalist call "dirty natural gas," there was a surge in electricity prices.
Additionally, experts warned that "the closure has jeopardized the reliability of New York’s electric grid, raising fears of potential blackouts, especially during peak demand periods."
Then there was the passage of the 2019 Climate Act.
It mandates that 1990 green-house gas emission levels be reduced 40% by 2030.
The other requirement: there must be 100% zero carbon electricity by 2040.
However, as Gov. Cuomo and Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul gave themselves high-fives when the Climate Act was signed into law, they failed to grasp the harsh consequences of their new policy.
Since enactment, $88.7 million of taxpayer money has been spent to implement the act while utility bills have been rising.
The consequences: It was reported in 2024 that 1.3 million households weren’t paying their electric and gas bills. But there's more . . .
In January, the state's public service commission approved a rate increase request by Consolidated Edison (ConEd), that will push up electric bills by 10.4% and gas bills by 15.8%.
By 2028, the average New Yorker will be paying an extra $600 annually.
Reacting to the news, Jack Korolev, a struggling ratepayer, told The New York Times, "Between rent and energy, I can’t save money. It weighs on me every month."
Despite Governor Hochul's boast that she's the state's chief environmentalist, she is suddenly heeding the cry of Jack Korolev and tens of thousands of other New Yorkers.
Why so?
It's an election year!
A Siena poll has indicated that 61% of Hochul's constituents hold that "Keeping energy costs affordable in New York is more important right now than reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
To placate voters, Hochul has publicly admitted that without a backup plan it was a mistake to close the Indian Point nuclear plant. (But she still opposes its reopening.)
And on Friday, March 20, Hochul called for the implementation of the 2019 Climate Act to be delayed.
In an op-ed in the Empire Report she declared, "Put simply, something has to give. We cannot meet the Climate Act's 2030 targets without imposing new and additional crushing costs on New York businesses and residents. . . .
"I cannot deal in hypotheticals and aspirations when I have to govern a state where my people are suffering, and I have to alleviate that pain."
The Climate Act is indeed inflicting pain. A memo that was leaked from one of Hochul's fiefdoms, the New York Energy Research and Development Agency, stated that the climate mandates, when fully implemented, would cost upstate homes an extra $4,000 a year for heat and would drive up the cost of automobile gasoline by $2.26 per gallon.
To save their political hides, the New York State Legislature may go along with Hochul's proposal to delay the climate law.
But it will merely be a delay to get through the election.
Lest voters forget, in early 2024 the governor delayed congestion pricing claiming the tolls would be a financial burden on struggling drivers.
But, after the fall elections, she quickly ordered the commencement of the program to begin on Jan. 1, 2025.
So much for financial burdens.
Having been fooled once, one can only hope that voters see through Hochul's sudden Damascus-like conversion and see what it actually is — a cynical election year ploy.
George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact," and "Christian Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy." Read more George J. Marlin Insider articles — Click Here Now.
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