By Carl Campanile
It’s been one big, green goof.
The Empire State’s green energy push has been a pie-in-the-sky bust as politicians hit the brakes on their alternate energy goals — and New Yorkers get sticker shock from ever-soaring utility bills, a scathing new report found.
The analysis by the Democratic-leaning think tank the Progressive Policy Institute found a “clear and undeniable pattern of failure” across the most critical mandates of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Act.
- Electricity prices are 44% higher than the national average, and residential rates have risen 36% since 2019, nearly three times faster than the rest of the country. New Yorkers pay 24.4 cents per killowatt hour, compared to 16.5 cents on the US average, the report showed.
- Utilities are pursuing additional rate hikes of roughly 20%, driven by aging infrastructure, storm repairs and rising operating costs, adding further pressure on households already facing higher energy bills.
- New York is behind on nearly every major climate mandate, including offshore wind, which is 1% operational, and energy storage, which is 8% operational toward 2030 goals. Only solar power is on track.
- Fossil fuels still supply nearly half of New York’s electricity, and the “premature” closure of Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester — a major supplier of zero-emissions energy to the Big Apple — slowed the state’s progress for clean energy.
In sum, the report said, the timelines for the green energy mandates are impractical.
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