Back at the beginning of the year, I had a post titled “New York On The March To Climate Utopia.” The post took note that everything about New York State’s vision for a zero-emissions economy and for “climate leadership” was in the process of falling apart.
Its contracts for vast offshore wind farms to replace fossil fuel generation had either been completely canceled (the majority) or rebid at much higher and uneconomic prices (the minority).
Its two contracted facilities to produce “green” hydrogen to back up the intermittent wind and solar had run into financial difficulties and were likely to fail.
Its one big contracted high-capacity transmission line to bring the imaginary upstate wind and solar electricity to downstate markets had also been canceled, without stated reason but almost certainly because of unworkable economics. …
In the few short weeks since that post, you would think that it would be almost impossible for the situation of New York’s utopian climate plans to have gotten any worse.
But in fact, the situation has gotten worse — much, much worse.
On January 20, President Trump was inaugurated, and he immediately went to work dismantling federal support and subsidies for “green” energy.
By this January 20 Executive Order, Trump “temporarily” withdrew all of the Outer Continental Shelf from leasing for wind power projects.
That appears to nix most, although perhaps not all, of New York’s offshore wind plans. (Although the pause in leasing is said to be “temporary,” there is no commitment that the leasing will ever resume.).
Also on January 20, Trump signed another Executive Order titled “Unleashing American Energy.” That one, in Section 7, ordered an immediate halt to all disbursements of subsidies to “green” energy projects under the Inflation Reduction Act or Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act:
All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58), . . . and shall review their processes, policies, and programs for issuing grants, loans, contracts, or any other financial disbursements of such appropriated funds for consistency with the law and the policy outlined in section 2 of this order.
New York was likely relying on receiving many billions of dollars under these Acts to prop up its wind, solar, transmission, and green hydrogen schemes.
Again, the pause from this EO is only “temporary” but in all likelihood, these funds will never come back during the Trump presidency, if ever.
Meanwhile, New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (Climate Act) remains on the books.
That statute commands the complete restructuring of New York’s energy economy to reach “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with a most immediate first deadline of 70% of electricity generation from “renewables” by 2030.
They never had a credible plan to achieve that, but they pretended they were going to do most of it with the big offshore wind buildout. Now that that is dead, they don’t even have a fake plan.
And also meanwhile, New York City’s statute known as Local Law 97 also remains on the books.
That’s the statute that mandates that all residential buildings over 25,000 square feet convert to electric heat by 2030 — the same year that the State’s Climate Act mandates 70% of electricity generation from “renewables,” of which the large majority can only come from non-existent wind and solar.
Thus we have the city mandating a huge increase in electricity demand by 2030 at the same time that the state is mandating the dismantling of our existing reliable electricity generation with no credible plan to replace it.
Back in 2022, a group of co-op owners and boards in Queens brought a case in the New York State courts seeking to get the City’s Local Law 97 declared invalid as “pre-empted” by the State’s Climate Act. The case goes by the name Glen Oaks Village Owners, Inc. v. City of New York.
Since it started, the case has been tied up in motions and appeals.
Initially, the trial court (in New York we call that the Supreme Court) dismissed the case, finding no pre-emption. However, the Appellate Division, First Department, reversed and ordered the trial court to consider whether there was pre-emption.
Rather than going back to the trial court, the City decided to try to appeal to the Court of Appeals, our highest court, to get the dismissal reinstated. The case has just concluded briefing in that court.
On Friday, my co-counsel Cam Macdonald and I filed an amicus brief in this case on behalf of a group of parties including some co-op owners and a not-for-profit called New Yorkers for Affordable Reliable Energy.
The amicus brief argues that the Climate Act and Local Law 97 are in irreconcilable conflict because the State, via the Climate Act, has no plan or ability to provide the electricity that would be needed to enable compliance with the City’s Local Law 97.
Here is a quote from our Summary of Argument:
The irreconcilability [of the two laws] arises from the simultaneous mandates in Local Law 97 and the Climate Act. First, Local Law 97 mandates that large residential buildings in New York City convert to electric heat by 2030. Meanwhile, the Climate Act requires that 70 percent come from “renewables,” also by 2030.
The latter mandate requires replacing always-available fossil fuel electrical generation capacity with intermittent wind and solar electricity generation, Wind and solar cannot provide continuous electricity supply. Intermittency threatens buildings that have converted to electric heat with losing heat for extended periods in the dead of winter.
The Climate Act, and a “Scoping Plan” developed under it, contain no credible plan to provide the additional reliable electricity needed to heat all large New York City buildings, as Local Law 97 mandates.
I don’t yet have a link for this amicus brief, but I plan to update this post when a link becomes available.
The Court of Appeals has a chance here to save New York City and its residents from their folly. It may or may not take advantage of the opportunity.
If it takes a pass and reinstates the dismissal of the case, Local Law 97 will still fail within a few years at most. It’s just that, in that scenario, a lot of people stand to get hurt.
Read more at Manhattan Contrarian
