“Over the next thirty years, when New Yorkers deal with rolling brownouts, skyrocketing energy costs, and mandates for expensive new appliances, they should remember today as the reason why.  

For the past year, employers, labor unions, and those responsible for producing and managing power in New York have been sounding the alarm on the Climate Action Council’s Draft Scoping Plan, and specified those concerns during the Council’s Public Hearings. It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the Climate Action Council’s Final Scoping Plan did not incorporate that feedback.  

The BNP shares the state’s goal of reducing emissions, but it must be done in a way and at a pace that keeps energy affordable and reliable. This Plan fails to achieve that balance.  

Adding the power demands of every facet of our economy onto an electric grid that already faces reliability concerns is grossly irresponsible. Aggressive energy generation regulations will make electricity more expensive and less reliable. If fully enacted, the Plan will also have a chilling effect on our economy and will worsen New York’s nation-worst outmigration trend. 

Although this Plan is a beast of their own creation, Governor Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature need to pump the brakes on implementing it.” 

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Dottie Gallagher is President and CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, the area’s regional chamber of commerce whose members employ over a quarter million people in the region.