By Steve Levy
An excellent study published by the Empire Center on Public Policy shows that electricity prices in blue states such as New York and California increased dramatically more than did the rates in red states, such as Florida and Texas. (You can also read the story below.)
The raw numbers put a lie to the talking points of the left that it’s the war in Iran or the demand for AI companies that have caused this dramatic increase.
Those events are rather new to the scene. The increases that have been borne by ratepayers in the blue states can be traced back to draconian climate change policies that green extremists in liberal blue-state legislatures began implementing around the year 2019.
California and New York began denying gas pipelines and gas-powered hookups, closing down nuclear power plants, taxing oil and gas output and massively subsidizing solar and wind projects with ratepayer dollars.
Analysts warned that these policies would have little impact on the overall climate, yet would dramatically spike electric rates. And that’s exactly what happened. New York and California saw their rates increase 64% and 65.4%, respectively, since 2019.
Meanwhile, the red states, such as Florida and Texas, that did not impose these policies, saw their increases much lower at 36.7% and 37.2%, respectively.
For all the pain that ratepayers in New York had to bear because of these pie-in-the-sky policies, the carbon footprint of New York has actually increased, not decreased, since these policies were implemented.
There’s no doubt that some of these electricity increases are inevitable, but the facts show that a good portion of these higher rates that we are paying is a political choice that the blue states have made.
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 “On the Right Side Podcast.” Costeffectivegov@gmail.com