Local Republican leaders gathered outside of a public hearing Wednesday that was designed to inform New Yorkers on the state's 15-year draft energy plan. The elected officials aired grievances with New York’s current 2019 climate law, which sets a multi-decade process to all but eliminate net-carbon emissions.
State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt said the New York is moving too fast with their plan.
"All of these things are being done at a time frame which is not reasonable, and in many cases, will result in less reliability," said Ortt, who represents large parts of Niagara County. "Because you have an electric grid that can barely handle the base load today, let alone moving every New Yorker over to the electric grid, whether in Western New York or across the state."
Next year is when a new state law goes into effect, which would ban newly built homes from acquiring access to natural gas lines. State Assemblyman Paul Bologna was critical of that law, which did see an unsuccessful legal challenge.
"I don't care what the hell you have, even if we had a nuclear facility that was up and running, it doesn't matter, because you can't get the power from the source to people's homes," said Bologna. "No one seems to be talking about that."
The public hearing at the Buffalo and Erie County Central Library is one of several planned throughout the state by NYSERDA, the state's energy development agency.
State Republicans aren't the only ones critical of the direction the state is heading with their energy plan. NY Renews, a coalition which championed the passing of the Climate Leadership and Protection Act in 2019, has expressed separate frustration that Governor Kathy Hochul is going back on some of those green energy goals.
“The updated State Energy Plan will now be in the news cycle feeding defeatist proclamations of failed renewable energy and zero-emission mandates along with calls for expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure," said NY Renews Steering Committee member Michael Richardson. "There is no acknowledgment that another goal is going unfulfilled: that is, limiting global warming to 1.5 C. Nor is there data on the catastrophic consequences from the continued production of fossil fuel emissions.
While near Buffalo back in July, Hochul herself publicly acknowledged her intention to roll back some of the efforts to hit goals laid out in the 2019 climate law.
"I had to take a closer look and realize we cannot reach those objectives there were, back before I became governor, in a time frame that's going to not hurt ratepayers," she said. "So we're slowing things down. I want to make sure people know that."
The issue of affordability is an important one, both in practice and politics. A Gallup poll during the 2024 presidential election found economic factors weighed on the minds nine in 10 voters. Hochul herself has a campaign to wage in 2026.
