By Steve Levy
For years, our center has been warning the general public that New York’s leaders are implementing senseless policies that will do nothing to protect the environment, yet will dramatically increase our energy costs.
Feel-good project after feel-good project was rolled out by New York politicians with great fanfare and press releases as to how they were saving the planet.
However, they conveniently failed to lay out the cost of these projects. They were fine with just letting it hit your bill at some point down the line, hoping that you would not tie these increases to these policies.
Well, now the chickens have come home to roost.
The policies of then-Governor Cuomo and current Governor Kathy Hochul to shut down natural gas pipelines, close nuclear power plants, ban fracking, and put all their money into expensive offshore windmills are finally being incorporated into our bills. And so National Grid just announced that, next year, homeowners will pay an additional $400 for their heating bills, only to be followed by another $500 increase the following year. Over a three-year period, the total increase will be over $1,622. https://paper.newsday.com/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?edid=f291f634-a2a3-43f7-84d3-23c8dfbc7fba&pnum=2
Remember that this is the same state government that, when asked how much windmills would cost, responded that they didn’t know and referred reporters to the private developers who thereupon said they could not provide the information. https://lilifepolitics.com/opinion-editorials/state-admits-it-doesnt-know-the-cost-of-wind-turbines/
Well, now we know.
But here’s the biggest joke of all. After all these crazy Green New Deal measures that have been implemented over the last five years, New York’s carbon output has actually increased. That’s because clean nuclear energy and natural gas have been reduced significantly. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/20/nuclear-plant-closure-carbon-emissions-new-york#:~:text=When%20New%20York’s%20deteriorating%20and,gas%20emissions%20have%20gone%20up.
They’re banning us from owning gas-fired vehicles within a few years and stopping us from buying gas stoves in new buildings. Yet China and India continue to build a new coal plant every week.
The answer to global warming is greater innovation, not crippling the U.S. economy and forcing New Yorkers to pay $1,600 more just to pay for the power in their homes. This doesn’t even enter into the equation the increases in filling up our cars.
Our leaders are intentionally making us poorer for no good reason.
When will we say enough?
Steve Levy is Executive Director of the Center for Cost Effective Government, a fiscally conservative think tank. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.”