In early January I posted an article describing my comments on the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) Operating Plan Amendment (“Amendment”) for 2023. This is a follow-up that describes what happens to comments in that process.
I have been involved in the RGGI program process since its inception. I blog about the details of the RGGI program because very few seem to want to provide any criticisms of the program. I submitted comments on the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). implementation plan and have written over 270 articles about New York’s net-zero transition because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
NYSERDA Board Background
This article describes the NYSERDA Board approval process for the 2023 RGGI Operating Amendment. The NYSERDA Board description shows that this is another example of a process controlled by the Governor:
NYSERDA is governed by a board consisting of 13 members, including the Commissioner of the Department of Transportation, the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, the Chair of the Public Service Commission, and the President and CEO of the Power Authority of the State of New York, who serve ex officio. The remaining nine members are appointed by the Governor of the State of New York with the advice and consent of the Senate and include, as required by statute, an engineer or research scientist, an economist, an environmentalist, a consumer advocate, an officer of a gas utility, an officer of an electric utility, and three at-large members.
At this time only 11 members are listed for the Board. Three are Department Commissioners, two are from NYSERDA, and the head of the New York Power Authority rounds out six people who are for all intents and purposes part of the Hochul Administration. All the others have some tie to climate resiliency and sustainability in their past working history or present titles.
My Comments
NYSERDA designed and implemented a process to develop and annually update an Operating Plan which summarizes and describes the initiatives to be supported by RGGI auction proceeds. On an annual basis, the Authority “engages stakeholders representing the environmental community, the electric generation community, consumer benefit organizations and interested members of the general public to assist with the development of an annual amendment to the Operating Plan.” New York State claims that RGGI “has helped reduce greenhouse gases from power plants by more than half and raised nearly $6 billion to support cleaner energy solutions”. I submitted detailed comments on the RGGI Operating Plan Amendments because the State has not figured out that there are ramifications to the historical success of the RGGI program and compliance implications associated with the RGGI auction proceed investments.
My comments evaluated the CO2 emissions trend of sources that are in the RGGI program. I showed that between 2000 and 2021 New York EGU emissions have dropped from 57,114,438 tons to 28,546,529 tons, a decrease of 50%. NYS EGU CO2 emissions were 39% lower in 2021 than the three-year baseline emissions before RGGI started. However, I showed that emissions have dropped primarily because coal and oil fueled generation has essentially gone to zero. Natural gas has increased to cover the generation from those fuels but because it has lower CO2 emission rates New York emissions have gone down. I also evaluated the emission reductions that could be attributed to RGGI investments based on NYSERDA reports. I found that RGGI investments account for only 16% of the observed reductions. This means that RGGI was not particularly successful as an emission reduction control program.
On the other hand, RGGI has successfully raised revenues for New York State. From the start of the program through the start of the fiscal years considered in the Operating Plan RGGI auctions have raised nearly $6 billion. My concern is that the relative lack of emission reductions attributable to New York’s RGGI auction proceeds was related to the fact that there was no emphasis on using the proceeds to provide emission reductions. Because of the success of fuel switching reductions this has not been a concern but now there are no more fuel switching opportunities and because of the Indian Point shutdown, the RGGI unit emissions have gone up. Going forward it will be increasingly difficult to make emission reductions. Carbon dioxide emissions are directly tied to fossil-fuel combustion and energy production. If, for any number of reasons, zero-emissions are not deployed fast enough to displace the energy produced by RGGI sources there might not be enough credits available to cover the emissions necessary to provide energy requirements. I concluded that it is incumbent upon the state to incentivize and subsidize carbon-free generation so that the RGGI sources can reduce operations and not jeopardize system reliability.
As part of my comments, I also evaluated the programs in the Operating Amendment relative to their value for future EGU emission reductions. The comments included descriptions of all the programs in the FY23-26 Amendment. I commented briefly on each proposed program and classified each program relative to six categories of potential RGGI source emission reductions. The first three categories cover programs that directly, indirectly or could potentially decrease RGGI-affected source emissions. Those programs total 45% of the investments. I also included a category for programs that will add load that could potentially increase RGGI source emissions such as programs to incentivize electrification, which totals 27% of the investments. Programs that do not affect emissions are funded with 21% of the proceeds and administrative costs total another 7%.
My comments noted that the draft Amendment explains that the programs in the portfolio of initiatives are designed to “support the pursuit of the State’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals”. However, of the five goals only one addresses emission reductions. The others are vague cover language to justify the use of RGGI auction proceeds as a slush fund for hiding administrative expenses, costs related to Climate Act implementation, and other politically favored projets at the expense of programs that affect CO2 emissions from RGGI affected sources. To date this has not been an issue because fuel switching has provided the necessary emission reductions. However, there could be a problem in the next several years because no more fuel switching reductions are available at the same time that RGGI allowance allocations continue to decrease. This exacerbates the potential of system reliability issues
Response to Comments
The question that intrigued me was what actually happened with the public stakeholder comments. There is no response to comments document. There is a memo that presumably summarizes the three-year plan and might describe the public stakeholder’s comments. If I ever get a copy of that memo, I will update this post. The public had two opportunities to present comment described below.
The first opportunity for public input ( available at the discussion portion of the meeting video) was at the December 12, 2022 meeting. The presentation noted that comments at the meeting would be treated as written comments and posted on the website. Conor Bambrick, Environmental Advocates of New York, spoke at the meeting. He asked whether the New York Sun program applied to Long Island and was told that it does not. However, there is another program that does. He asked whether there were any success stories available for the community heat pump program but the program has not reached that point yet. He had specific question about components of the clean energy taskforce development program. He also had some clarifying questions about various programs. I don’t think any of his questions specifically asked for changes. There was a comment that funding should not be provided for Hydrogen Hubs because a pilot project showed hydrogen could emit more NOx and Ozone than natural gas. I am familiar with that project and he got his wires crossed because that is not what happened in the pilot project he referenced. I do not think that any of these comments warranted a follow-up response so it is not surprising that the website does not include anything from the meeting.
The second opportunity was to submit written comments and two written comments submitted. The New York Municipal Electric Utilities Association commented that the “Municipal Pilot Program” should be expanded. As far as I can tell the only change to that program was to shift the dates but the total allocation remains $2.5 million. My comment was the other one. I mentioned that the Scoping Plan Implementation Research program was important because there are unresolved issues associated with the Scoping Plan. The allocation for that program was reduced $1 million to $3 million.
As I noted above, my comments explained that if the operating plan for the RGGI auction proceeds did not invest sufficiently in programs that directly reduce emissions then there is a possibility that affected units may not be able to provide power when needed because they don’t have sufficient allowances to cover operations. My point was that programs that do not directly, indirectly or could eventually reduce RGGI source emissions by displacing the energy they provide should be emphasized and programs that increase RGGI source emissions should be de-emphasized. The following table shows that the final version of the amendment plan for RGGI auction proceeds does the exact opposite. The total funding for RGGI reduction programs drops by $190 million and the % of the total goes down 9% to only 36%.
The NYSERDA Use of Auction Proceeds website describes the operating plan and provides links to the operating plan, the meeting materials for the Stakeholder meeting, and the Comments on the 2023 Draft Amendment. The approved Operating Plan Amendment and the transcript for the Board meeting where the Amendment was approved are both available. I extracted the discussion for the operating plan approval but have not been able to find the memo referred to in the presentation.
The transcript for the meeting includes the following overview by John Williams, Executive Vice President for Policy and Regulatory Affairs at NYSERDA:
We’ll move this one along pretty quickly. We’re here with our annual routine RGGI approval process. So the, the Members have received both the three year plan that we’re proposing as well as a memo of summarizing all that. Just some high points here for awareness. You know, we did engage our annual process to come up with our proposal and present that to stakeholders. And on December 12th we held a webinar for receipt of stakeholder input on that. So some participation there and some exchange of thoughts happening at that December 12th webinar. The proposal was also open for written public comments through January 6th, and we did receive a couple of comments there. The proposal you have was you know, does take those public feedback into account
It is obvious that NYSERDA was going through the motions of the stakeholder process. They had a meeting for stakeholder input, check. They had a public comment period, check. They posted both comments received, check. John Williams told the Board that public feedback was taken into account, check. They had a discussion of the Operating Plan Amendment at the Board meeting, check. John Williams responded to questions that came up during the discussion, check. The Board voted to approve the Amendment, check. Mission accomplished.
Response to Comments
The question that intrigued me was what actually happened with the public stakeholder comments. There is no response to comments document. There is a memo that presumably summarizes the three-year plan and might describe the public stakeholder’s comments. If I ever get a copy of that memo, I will update this post. The public had two opportunities to present comment described below.
The first opportunity for public input ( available at the discussion portion of the meeting video) was at the December 12, 2022 meeting. The presentation noted that comments at the meeting would be treated as written comments and posted on the website. Conor Bambrick, Environmental Advocates of New York, spoke at the meeting. He asked whether the New York Sun program applied to Long Island and was told that it does not. However, there is another program that does. He asked whether there were any success stories available for the community heat pump program but the program has not reached that point yet. He had specific question about components of the clean energy taskforce development program. He also had some clarifying questions about various programs. I don’t think any of his questions specifically asked for changes. There was a comment that funding should not be provided for Hydrogen Hubs because a pilot project showed hydrogen could emit more NOx and Ozone than natural gas. I am familiar with that project and he got his wires crossed because that is not what happened in the pilot project he referenced. I do not think that any of these comments warranted a follow-up response so it is not surprising that the website does not include anything from the meeting.
The second opportunity was to submit written comments and two written comments submitted. The New York Municipal Electric Utilities Association commented that the “Municipal Pilot Program” should be expanded. As far as I can tell the only change to that program was to shift the dates but the total allocation remains $2.5 million. My comment was the other one. I mentioned that the Scoping Plan Implementation Research program was important because there are unresolved issues associated with the Scoping Plan. The allocation for that program was reduced $1 million to $3 million.
As I noted above, my comments explained that if the operating plan for the RGGI auction proceeds did not invest sufficiently in programs that directly reduce emissions then there is a possibility that affected units may not be able to provide power when needed because they don’t have sufficient allowances to cover operations. My point was that programs that do not directly, indirectly or could eventually reduce RGGI source emissions by displacing the energy they provide should be emphasized and programs that increase RGGI source emissions should be de-emphasized. The following table shows that the final version of the amendment plan for RGGI auction proceeds does the exact opposite. The total funding for RGGI reduction programs drops by $190 million and the % of the total goes down 9% to only 36%.
The bottom line is that there is no description describing the response to the comments. From what I could ascertain the comments received were not “taken into account”. The final amendment did the opposite of what was recommended for two program-specific suggestions. My overall concern about emphasizing programs that could reduce RGGI emissions was also ignored and funding changed directly opposite of my suggestion.
Conclusion
The only indication that I have that someone read my comments is that I pointed out a typographical error that was corrected. There is no evidence supporting the John Williams claim to the Board that “The proposal you have was you know, does take those public feedback into account”. The fact is that the recommendations of the two written comments were ignored. This is typical for New York stakeholder outreach, the only thing that matters to State Agencies is the process because the answer is in the back of the book. The Hochul Administration picked the projects and selected the Board members who approved them to further their objectives. The Administration only pretends to care about public stakeholder input.
So why do I bother submitting comments. In this instance the Hochul Administration is getting themselves out on thin ice. Carbon dioxide emissions are directly tied to fossil-fuel combustion and energy production. If State investments do not displace energy use at the RGGI electric generating units at the same time that RGGI allowance availability shrinks, the time may come when the only compliance option available is to not operate. That is the reason that I argued that a change of emphasis for RGGI allowance proceeds to prioritize emission reduction efforts was appropriate. I submit comments because if there is a problem in the future the politicians will not be able to say they were not warned.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 