Albany Times Union Commentary: Just how much is the CLCPA going to cost us?

August 14th, 2023

The state has been far too vague on the price tag of the energy transition, and New Yorkers have a right to know before they’re stuck with the bill.

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In the rush to pass the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in 2019, concerns over its affordability were brushed aside. Unfortunately, four years later, we find ourselves just beginning to discuss the enormous costs associated with New York’s climate goals.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation’s commissioner, Basil Seggos, raised concerns earlier this year that the CLCPA could result in an 80 percent increase in natural gas bills and an increase of 63 cents per gallon of gasoline. Seggos and Doreen Harris, commissioner of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, concurred in a joint op-ed that “fighting climate change won’t work if people and businesses can’t afford it.”

We couldn’t agree more.

We encourage New Yorkers to take the time to better understand the realities of the CLCPA, because it’s not just natural gas and gasoline prices that are going to skyrocket. In fact, just about every cost associated with the CLCPA is blowing up.

The Port of Albany facility to build wind towers is already 100 percent over initial cost projection of $350 million. Will the final cost be closer to $1 billion? Probably.

This past June, petitions filed with the Public Service Commission on behalf of several renewable-energy projects requested more money, warning that without it, they might walk away from those projects. How much more are they requesting? The answer, as with most of the costs associated with the CLCPA, is that we don’t know: It’s not included in the filings. Utility customers have the right to know how much more they will have to pay before being forced to foot the bill.

While New Yorkers don’t know the real costs of the CLCPA yet, they can be assured that the rise in their utility bills over the past few years will pale in comparison to the increases that are coming.

How do we know this? Because the Department of Public Service report released last month indicates that the CLCPA caused double-digit increases on bills in 2022 alone. This is troubling because only a small portion of the total costs of the CLCPA have shown up in 2022 utility bills.

A huge driver of the problem is the timeline, which isn’t just driving increased costs but is encouraging them. For example, the developers of renewables are forcing the state into a situation in which, if the PSC doesn’t approve their request for additional funding, it will be forced to rebid the projects and, ultimately, risk missing legally required targets under the CLCPA. In this way, the expedited timeline effectively creates a perverse incentive for developers to demand more money from the state.

Lurching from cost overrun to cost overrun is a guarantee that the initial projections of the CLCPA were wrong. We are long overdue for serious conversations about the impact of the CLCPA on reliability and affordability. While there have not been blackouts yet, when it comes to transparency of the costs of the CLCPA, leaders in Albany are keeping New Yorkers in the dark.

Justin Wilcox is executive director of Upstate United, an economic advocacy coalition.