Yesterday I described the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) stakeholder process for investing the proceeds received from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Yesterday’s post explained that NYSERDA had inappropriately prevented participants from asking questions about the RGGI operating plan amendment at the Stakeholder Meeting on 12/8/23. In order to address the requirement for stakeholder participation a webinar was held today for discussion and questions. While NYSERDA staff said they appreciated the questions I submitted before the meeting their responses demonstrated that they really could have cared less,
I have been involved in the RGGI program process since its inception. One of my retirement hobbies is to blog about the details of the RGGI program because very few seem to want to provide any criticisms of the program. 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.
Background
For background information on RGGI and the operating plan refer to yesterday’s post.
This article and yesterday’s post explain why I believe that NYSERDA does not take the shareholder engagement obligation seriously. From what I see it is a formality and there is no real interest in dealing with anything inconsistent with their preconceived narrative and investment plans.
NYSERDA 2024 RGGI Operating Plan Amendment Schedule
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. The operating plan amendments are submitted to the NYSERDA Board of Directors for approval after a stakeholder process that “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.”
The timeline for this year’s public stakeholder process is the first sign that the commitment to engage stakeholders to assist with the Operating Plan is a hollow gesture. As shown in the following timeline the schedule is so tight and crosses a holiday, that it is unrealistic to expect meaningful input:
- On 11/27/23 NYSERDA sent an email announcing the annual New York State Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) Operating Plan Advisory Stakeholder meeting will take place on Friday, December 8, 2023.
- Sometime before the meeting the NYSERDA RGGI Meeting and Planning Documents website was updated with a copy of the draft 2023 Operating Plan Amendment and instructions for stakeholder remote access.
- On 12/8/23 NYSERDA hosted the Advisory Stakeholder meeting
- On 12/14/23 NYSERDA announced a public session on 12/20/to answer questions about the DRAFT 2024 RGGI Operating Plan Amendment or information presented during the past meeting.
- 12/20/23 Opportunity for Public Discussion of DRAFT 2024 RGGI Operating Plan Amendment webinar
- 12/29/23 Written comments due
Issues with the Advisory Stakeholder Meeting
I tried to join the 12/8/23 meeting but failed to get in because no password was provided. I wrote to the email address used for commenting on the amendment explaining that I was not able to join the meeting. I received the following response after the meeting: “I’m sorry to hear that you had trouble accessing the webinar. We’ll have the recording posted to our website shortly for your reference.”
The recording lasts 49 minutes and it is clear that no one associated with the meeting figured out that no members from the public were on the call. At 45:50 of the video the host announced the opportunity for public comment from anyone who was visiting and attending in the room as well as comments from anyone who might be participating remotely. No one attended the meeting in person. The host said “No questions seem to have come in from the webinar. After 30 seconds or so they moved on. It is inconceivable to me that no one on the call has access to the attendee list that showed no one was on it. Therefore I conclude that they did not care and likely were pretty happy that they did not have to deal with trouble makers who asked questions that would mean more work or lead to uncomfortable responses.
Six days later NYSERDA announced the December 20, 2023 Opportunity for Public Discussion Webinar. I read this to mean that I was not the only one who could not join the webinar. I can think of two reasons for the webinar keep up the impression that they cared about stakeholder engagement or possibly there is some provision in the open meetings law that requires that the public actually have the chance to ask questions that they were required to have a meeting that allowed questions.
The recording of the meeting supports my concern that public engagement is not a real priority. They were clearly just going through the motions. The meeting consisted of agency staff reading scripted spiels. The introductions described the narrative and little else. NYSERDA staff descriptions of the projects recited information in the operating plan amendment with no additional context or details.
Issues with the Opportunity for Public Discussion Webinar
In yesterday’s post I explained that I followed the directions for the webinar. I reviewed the presentation recording, studied the transcript of the meeting, compared the meeting slide presentation to the draft amendment, and checked my draft set of comments on the amendment to prepare questions for NYSERDA that I submitted the day before the meeting.
I described some of the more important questions and linked to all the questions in yesterday’s post. The questions were in three categories: specific concerns with the operating plan amendment, questions on the presentations describing the amendment, and over-arching questions for discussion at the public session.
The response to questions during the webinar further reinforces my belief that NYSERDA is only paying lip service to the public engagement commitment. They only set aside 30 minutes to respond to questions. Near the end of the call I heard “We have to be respectful of people’s time” which translates to NYSERDA staff time and not these trouble making members of the public who forced us to have this call.
They did not get through all the questions I posed. They took questions posed in the chat function of the webinar. I did not get a chance to make a copy of the chat window before the webinar was shut down so I cannot provide details. All the chat questions addressed specifics of programs. In my opinion, the responses gave short shrift to the questions posed.
It was not until 25 minutes in until they begrudgingly started to answer my questions. In other words,they almost got away avoiding everything that I took the time to send to them before the meeting. In my written questions I asked five questions related to specific concerns with the operating plan amendment, five questions about the presentations describing the amendment, and six questions addressing over-arching questions for discussion. They answered two of the questions related to specific concerns with the operating plan amendment, none of the questions about the presentations describing the amendment, and two questions addressing over-arching questions for discussion.
The responses to questions related to the specific concerns with the operating plan amendment are not of general interest but the responses to the others are worth noting.
The answer to the following question missed the point:
During his overview presentation at the beginning of the Operating Plan Advisory Stakeholder Meeting, Jonathan Binder said “First, it resulted in real carbon dioxide emission reductions. In fact, since 2005, we’ve seen emissions from power plants subject to the program go down by around sixty percent region wide.” In the comments that I submitted last year I argued that the primary reason emissions went down so much was because of fuel switching from coal and residual oil to natural gas. In the comments I intend to submit I show that the investments of RGGI auction proceeds only were responsible for 11% of the observed reductions. Are DEC and NYSERDA claiming that all the observed reductions are due to RGGI? How much of the observed reduction does NYSERDA claim for RGGI auction proceed investments and why?
The responder claimed that the answer to this question was included in the following report: New York’s RGGI-Funded Programs Status Report – Semiannual Report through June 30, 2023. According to Table 1. Summary of Expected Cumulative Portfolio Benefits through June 30, 2023 in that report, the cumulative annual installed Net GHG emissions savings were 1,807,679 tons of CO2e. In 2022 emissions were down 16,196,531 tons relative to the 2006-2008 annual average baseline. That works out to 11%. The Status Report does not compare the expected portfolio emission reduction against the observed reduction, so the response did not answer the question. This is important. The point is that the DEC and NYSERDA have never admitted that RGGI investments are only responsible for a fraction of the observed reductions. I think that suggests that investing in more effective programs would be appropriate. I raised that point in one of the unanswered questions:
In my comments I focus on the allocation of investments in the operating plan amendment. I reviewed the program allocations and allocated program investments into six categories. The first three categories cover programs that directly, indirectly, or could potentially decrease RGGI-affected source emissions. Those programs only total 33% of the investments. I also included a category for programs that will add load that could potentially increase RGGI source emissions which totals 24% of the investments. Programs that do not affect emissions are funded with 35% of the proceeds and administrative costs total another 8%. Given the necessity of state investments in zero-emissions resources and load reduction these allocations are troubling. When the investment allocations were determined was the necessity to invest in programs that could decrease RGGI-affected source emissions necessary to meet the RGGI allowance trajectory considered?
They did respond to the following question:
While you mention costs, the operating plan includes years when the cap and invest program will impact allowance prices and the cost of electricity in the state. How is that change reflected in the plan?
The other discussion questions were asked to see if there had been any strategic consideration of investments and expected reductions relative to the Climate Act emission targets. The State has not had to worry about that but RGGI-affected sources in New York have limited options for future reductions. There are no fuel-switching options left and there are no cost-effective add-on controls available. RGGI is a trading program and if there are allowances available from outside New York, in-state sources can purchase allowances but that does not necessarily lead to in-state emissions reductions. The New York Cap-and-Invest program is considering limits on trading in areas such as disadvantaged communities, that would make this option unavailable. The only guaranteed remaining option is to reduce operating time. I think it is incumbent upon the state to incentivize zero-emissions generation and reduce load so that NY RGGI sources can reduce operations and not jeopardize system reliability. NYSERDA staff at the meeting ducked the question: Has NYSERDA estimated how much additional zero-emissions generation and load reduction is necessary to reduce New York RGGI emissions consistent with the allowance reduction trajectory?
I believe they think they are the smartest people in the room, and I know that there is overt pressure from the Hochul Administration to support the narrative. This combination of hubris and bias is dangerous. They are refusing to consider comments that use observed results in the plans for future investments or anything else from outside their bubble. Consequently, they are endangering the Climate Act targets they are supposed to be supporting.
There was one final disappointment that epitomized the meeting. I asked if NYSERDA would publish responses to my questions and respond to comments submitted. Long winded and evasive answer boiled down to no. With all due respect, if I were on the NYSERDA Board and had to vote on how to spend over $250 million per year I would like to see documentation that addressed public stakeholder input. As it is the NYSERRDA staff presentation to the Board says we considered stakeholder input but provides no documentation.
Conclusion
In yesterday’s post I mentioned that today’s meeting would be an opportunity for my readers to experience firsthand New York’s Climate Act transition planning process. I hoped nobody wasted their time doing so. This meeting was embarrassing even by Albany agency standards.
This year’s stakeholder process actively discourages public engagement. The expectation that meaningful comments could be prepared two weeks after the posting of the video of the meeting and ten days after the chance to ask questions with the Christmas holiday in between is not realistic. The response to questions today suggests that it would not matter anyway. the refusal to provide answers to all the questions submitted seems to be a deliberate attempt to squelch input.
NYSERDA gives lip service to public stakeholder participation but the actions during this process clearly show the bottom line is they don’t care. The public participation meeting just checked the box that there was public participation.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 