Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York

Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate

This post is part of my continuing coverage of the draft New York State Energy Plan (Draft Plan). In late July the United States Department of Energy (DOE) published a draft report titled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate”. This post describes differences between that report and the Draft Plan Climate Change, Adaptation and Resiliency chapter.

The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda” was based on an Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

The rationale of New York’s net-zero transition plan is that climate change is a threat to society that must be addressed by eliminating the use of fossil fuels. Because I believe that the climate change threat narrative has become religious dogma for many, I have not addressed this position much. However, I believe that climate change is an exaggerated problem that is diverting attention away from other serious environmental and societal issues to the detriment of us all.

The Draft Energy Plan Climate Change, Adaptation and Resiliency (Climate Chapter) document represents the extreme “consensus” view of climate change. In my opinion, New York’s climate change position represents the extreme end of the consensus because there have been instances (e.g. sea level rise projections) where state policy is based on a more extreme position than that taken by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Critical Review

On July 29, 2025 the Department of Energy released the Critical Review report. Rather than drafting a summary of the report I am going to quote the Background and Overview from the Federal Register Notice of Availability: A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate (NOA). I am also going to highlight differences in the review relative to statements in the Draft Energy Plan chapter on climate change

The draft report was prepared by independent scientists, assembled by Energy Secretary Chris Wright with diverse expertise in physical science, economics, climate science and academic research. The authors are John Christy, Judith Curry, Steven Koonin, Ross McKitrick, and Roy Spencer. The press release describes their backgrounds. In my opinion, they are all first-rate experts. The Background in the Notice of Availability (NOA) states that:

The draft report titled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate” was developed by DOE’s 2025 Climate Working Group, a group of five independent scientists assembled by Energy Secretary Chris Wright with diverse expertise in physical science, academic research and climate science. The landing page for the CWG Report, including a press release, can be found here.

The following quotations are from the NOA “Overview of the CWG Report”.

The report reviews scientific certainties and uncertainties in how anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions have affected, or will affect, the Nation’s climate, extreme weather events, and selected metrics of societal well-being. Those emissions are increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere through a complex and variable carbon cycle, where some portion of the additional CO2 persists in the atmosphere for centuries.

Increasing concentration of CO2 is uncontroversial.

Elevated concentrations of CO2 directly enhance plant growth, globally contributing to “greening” the planet and increasing agricultural productivity. They also make the oceans less alkaline (lower the pH). That is possibly detrimental to coral reefs, although the recent rebound of the Great Barrier Reef suggests otherwise.

Many of the other statements are controversial. The Climate Chapter does not mention any potential benefits to increased CO2 concentrations. I suspect that the only reason coral reef threats are not mentioned is because New York does not have any coral.

Carbon dioxide also acts as a greenhouse gas, exerting a warming influence on climate and weather. Climate change projections require scenarios of future emissions. There is evidence that scenarios widely-used in the impacts literature have overstated observed and likely future emission trends.

The Climate Chapter references the 2024 New York State Climate Impacts Assessment (NYSCIA). It claims that it “offers a thorough evaluation of historical climate data”. The Draft Review reference to a widely-used scenario refers to the use of Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5. That scenario was used extensively in the NYSCIA apparently because it provided the biggest potential impacts. In my opinion, that approach invalidates projections in the assessment because the scenario is impossible.

The world’s several dozen global climate models offer little guidance on how much the climate responds to elevated CO2, with the average surface warming under a doubling of the CO2 concentration ranging from 1.8° C to 5.7° C. Data-driven methods yield a lower and narrower range. Global climate models generally run “hot” in their description of the climate of the past few decades. The combination of overly sensitive models and implausible extreme scenarios for future emissions yields exaggerated projections of future warming.

NYSCIA used the “hot” models and the implausible extreme scenarios to claim that “in order to limit the global average increase in temperature to 2°C (if possible, 1.5°C) and minimize the risk of the most severe climate impacts, substantial reductions in GHG emissions by mid-century are required.” In my opinion, the models that used are not fit for policy decisions.

Most extreme weather events in the U.S. do not show long-term trends. Claims of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts are not supported by U.S. historical data. Additionally, forest management practices are often overlooked in assessing changes in wildfire activity. Global sea level has risen approximately 8 inches since 1900, but there are significant regional variations driven primarily by local land subsidence; U.S. tide gauge measurements in aggregate show no obvious acceleration in sea level rise beyond the historical average rate.

NYSCIA concludes that “New York State’s climate has already changed, with impacts evident across economic sectors, industries, natural systems, communities, and regions.” The Critical Review directly contradicts these claims.

Attribution of climate change or extreme weather events to human CO2 emissions is challenged by natural climate variability, data limitations, and inherent model deficiencies. Moreover, solar activity’s contribution to the late 20th century warming might be underestimated.

Ditto.

Both models and experience suggest that CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed, and excessively aggressive mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial. Social Cost of Carbon estimates, which attempt to quantify the economic damage of CO2 emissions, are highly sensitive to their underlying assumptions and so provide limited independent information.

The Climate Act is based on a fundamentally different outlook. The Preamble to the Climate Act legislation claims that: “Action undertaken by New York to reduce greenhouse emissions will have an impact on global greenhouse gas emissions and the rate of climate change.” The NYSCIA document is completely consistent with the law and there isn’t even a suggestion that there might be uncertainties.

U.S. policy actions are expected to have undetectably small direct impacts on the global climate, and any effects will emerge only with long delays.

This point is not addressed in the Climate Act, NYSCIA, or any New York GHG emission reduction regulation. Nothing that the United States can do will have a detectable impact on the global climate so anything New York does is going to have an even less detectable impact. There is no justification whatsoever for the Climate Act schedule even if we must “do something”.

Discussion

In my opinion, the Critical Review is long overdue. I appreciate the commitment of the authors. An interview with Steven Koonin by John Robson from the Climate Discussion Nexus makes the important point that we don’t know nearly as much as proponents claim and that consideration of what we know and what we don’t know should be reflected in policy approaches. Roy Spencer and Judith Curry both wrote blog posts explaining why they got involved in the report. All five authors provided a joint written response to Nature magazine, stating they are “committed to a transparent and fact-based dialogue on climate science” and that they will respond publicly “to all serious scientific comments” during the NOA public comment period.

The usual suspects response has been outrage that anyone could possibly question their “settled science”. They are demanding systematic fact-checking efforts and a public debate. All the while hey are oblivious to the point that all five of the authors have been asking for just such an approach for years. I agree with the need for an open debate of the climate science.

Conclusion

The key point for New York is that we have the same situation here. The Draft Energy Plan stakeholder process has no forum for public debate. I believe that the arguments that make the case that the net-zero transition ambition and schedule will result in an affordable and reliable energy system are much weaker than the arguments that GHG emission reductions are necessary to control the climate. The failure to openly discuss the differences between the Draft Energy Plan and New York Independent System Operator projections is unacceptable. If the stakeholder process for the Draft Energy Plan continues to ignore public input, then I think New York will be saddled with a false solution that will take years to fix.

Bait and Switch Draft Energy Plan Costs

As part of my continuing coverage of the draft New York State Energy Plan. I recently explained how the analyses for the Draft Energy Plan are hiding the true costs to meet the Climate Act targets. Energy Bad Boys Mitch Rolling and Isaac Orr recently published an article that describes a similar evaluation that has the same flaw that does a better job explaining the problem.

The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Net-Zero Aspirations

According to the New York State Energy Plan website: “The State Energy Plan is a comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers.” The driving factor for the Energy Plan is the net-zero ambitions of New York’s ruling political party. This is the first update of the Energy Plan since the Climate Act was passed in 2019. I have provided more background information and a list of previous articles on my Energy Plan page.

Costs

In my article about Energy Plan costs, I mentioned that NYSERDA President and CEO Doreen is the Chairperson the Energy Planning Board. After a presentation regarding the Transmission and Distribution Reliability Study she said.

You may recall during our last meeting in which we discussed the pathways modeling for this plan. And to remind you, the analysis showed that New York’s citizens and businesses will need to invest over one hundred billion dollars each year in the energy system, no matter which future path we take.

I have one immediate response. There is no future net-zero transition path that would not cost much more than $100 billion. NYSERDA, ever beholden to the Hochul Administration’s political plans, has prepared a “comprehensive” roadmap using a misleading limited assessment As was the case with the Integration Analysis and Scoping Plan, NYSERDA is interpreting the “No action” scenario as one that includes all legacy programs in place prior to the passage of the Climate Act. This reduces the implementation costs. The appropriate baseline scenario is one that excludes all programs that were promulgated to reduce GHG emissions.

After publishing my article, I found an analysis of a similar situation by Energy Bad Boys Mitch Rolling and Isaac Orr describing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analysis of its regulations on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing coal and new natural gas plants. They describe the same problem with that evaluation as the NYSERDA Energy Plan evaluation. I think the article does a better job than I did explaining the problem, so this post features their excellent work and its implications to NYS..

B,S. Baseline Modeling

In the Introduction to their article the Rolling and Orr describe the challenge of modeling future energy possibilities. It is entirely applicable to New York.

Whenever you see a regulatory agency like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or a utility company crow about how much an energy proposal or regulation will save or cost Americans, the first thing you should do is ask: “Oh yeah? Compared to what?”

It’s important to ask this question because these entities never report the true cost of a proposal compared to today’s costs, but instead, they compare the costs to some imaginary future baseline scenario that is often even more expensive.

This deceptive bait-and-switch tactic allows utilities and regulatory agencies to hide the true costs of their onerous regulations or integrated resource plans in a B.S. baseline. It also allows these entities to dishonestly claim their preferred policies will save energy consumers money—when in reality, they won’t.

In New York this tactic was used in the Scoping Plan analysis and is being used again in the Draft Energy Plan analysis. In my description of the Scoping Plan I referred to this as a shell game. The Rolling and Orr call it “bait and switch” and describe it thusly:

Imagine you were at Best Buy browsing around, and you saw an advertisement for two TVs—the one on the left has a price tag of $800, and the other on the right has a price tag of $500. The sign reads: “Save $300 by choosing the one on the right!”

Sure, you can save $300 by buying the TV on the right, compared to buying the one on the left, but ultimately, you understand that you’re still spending an extra $500. You could save even more ($500) by not buying a new TV in the first place. These are the kinds of bait-and-switch shenanigans used by regulatory agencies and utilities to sell their energy proposals to the public.

To help understand how this relates to energy modeling, it helps to look at another example involving a government budget.

Let’s say the federal government currently spends $200 billion per year on government programs, but some lawmakers want to increase spending to $1 trillion to pay for more government programs. Ultimately, Congress agrees to spend a total of $700 billion per year instead of $1 trillion.

Most people would probably look at this budget and agree that it increases spending by $500 billion per year, but spending advocates would argue that this bill saves $300 billion per year. This is only true if you read the fine print that says, “compared to the baseline cost estimate that assumed a total of spending $1 trillion.”

In New York, NYSERDA is claiming that the costs of the net-zero transition are a small increment of the one hundred billion annual investments in the energy system, “no matter which future path we take.” Much to the chagrin of NYSERDA, they have not been able to torture the numbers to the point where they can claim that the net-zero transition will save money so they are left with arguing that it is a small increment. For New Yorkers the key point is that NYSERDA has not provided a detailed breakdown of costs per emission strategy future path. As a result, we do not know how the expected costs are allocated so that we cannot check their claim.

Rolling and Orr evaluated the costs of the GHG emission reduction regulations implemented by the Biden Administration

Ordinarily, it would seem reasonable to assume that the benefits of reversing a regulation could be determined by reversing the estimated cost of complying with said regulation.

When the Biden EPA finalized its regulations, they claimed the rules would only cost Americans $19 billion in additional costs, and that these compliance costs would be far outweighed by the benefits of fewer emissions of criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases.

But there was a major problem with their claim: Almost all of the actual compliance costs of the rules were buried in a B.S. Baseline.

The B.S. Biden Baseline is a scenario created by the Biden EPA in 2023 that assumed almost all of the changes to the power generation fleet in the next two decades would be due to the subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and state wind and solar mandates, not the Biden administration’s greenhouse gas regulations.

Based on our evaluation (let’s be real, Mitch did this part) of the EPA’s slew of Excel spreadsheets, the Biden Admin’s B.S. Baseline accounted for 95 percent of the changes in generation capacity from the MISO grid in 2025 through 2055, compared to the final rules, which you can see in the table below.

Because the Biden administration hid almost all of the new generation capacity in its B.S. Baseline, nearly all of the costs associated with building and operating this generating capacity were hidden, as well.

NYSERDA has not provided sufficient information in their documentation to develop a similar table. Rolling and Orr went on to explain how the true EPA plan costs were buried.

The Biden administration claimed that its final power plant wrule ould only increase costs by $19 billion over a 24-year period, spanning from 2024 through 2047, using a 2 percent discount rate. However, this modest compliance cost is entirely due to the fact that most of the expenses for the modeled MISO grid in the Biden Final CPS Rules IPM output files are incurred in the Biden Base Case.

The graph below shows the costs of building and operating the MISO grids outlined in the Biden administration’s B.S. Baseline and final regulations. Our modeling indicates that the modeled MISO grid in the Biden Baseline would cost $362.1 billion, using the subsidy phaseout timeline established in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the final Biden regulations would cost $404.1 billion.

As a result, the true cost of building and operating the MISO grid under the Biden rules envisioned in Biden’s regulatory impact analysis would be $404.1 billion, but the administration would only consider $42.9 billion as compliance costs.

Ideally at this point I would prepare a similar chart describing New York’s energy cost breakdown and illustrating my point that NYSERDA is using a similar bait and switch tactic. In theory, I could emulate Mitch Rolling and prepare my own estimate of costs but that would require an enormous amount of time that I do not have for this post. The NYSERDA Pathways Analysis projects that energy system investments will total $120 billion per year out to 2040. In my opinion, that is an extraordinary claim that should be justified with transparency that identifies the choices and assumptions made to arrive at that number, including the numbers needed to make a similar chart.

Rollings and Ord concluded:

Long story short, the B.S. Baseline used by the Biden administration hid 90 percent of the costs of its regulations. Because the Biden Base Case is responsible for the vast majority of the changes observed in the modeled MISO grid in the Biden Final CPS Rules, it is responsible for driving the vast majority of the cost of the changing resource portfolio.

Therefore, it is incredibly misleading to suggest that the Final CPS Rules would be cost effective, since the 90 percent of the costs are hidden in its baseline modeling. This is called a Bait & Switch—and it’s completely B.S.

It is impossible to provide a similar breakdown of costs associated with the NYSERDA Draft Energy Plan’s claim that energy system investments will total $120 billion per year out to 2040 whatever future energy path because there insufficient documentation. I believe that full disclosure would lead to the same conclusion.

Discussion

The Energy Plan Pathways Analysis defines the “No Action” pathway scenario as “reflecting outcomes in the absence of the Climate Act and energy policies enacted from 2019 onwards”. It includes federal energy incentives and legacy New York State policies (i.e., those in place as of 2019), but it explicitly excludes any state and local climate, decarbonization, or efficiency policies put in place since 2019. NYSERDA insinuates that this represents the world without New York State driven climate action. However, as shown in my earlier post, there are many projects in the “No Action” pathway scenario that when included underestimate the cost of achieving net-zero.

For illustrative purposes, the “No Action” scenario includes the Federal electric vehicle mandate emission reduction program. Switching to electric vehicles is necessary to achieve the Climate Act emission reduction targets but the costs for this program are buried in the $120 billion annual investment because the federal mandate was in place before the law was passed. The current uncertainty of Federal electric vehicle mandates will affect the implementation ramp rate.

Conclusion

New York’s B.S. Baseline of the bait and switch tactics described in the Rollings and Orr post improperly includes “no action” projects that only exist because of the Climate Act. I believe that the majority of New Yorkers agree with me that we want to know the total cost, irrespective of which regulation requirement, of the Energy Plan projects that will be necessary to meet the net-zero and electric system mandates of the Climate Act. In my opinion, there is no question that those costs would be enormous and no question that that fact is being hidden by NYSERDA in its own B.S. Baseline.

More Reasons to Pause

I am very frustrated with the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net zero transition because the reality is that there are so many issues coming up with the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act that it is obvious that we need to pause implementation and figure out how best to proceed. This post summarizes an article that describes the misleading nomenclature used by activists to describe clean and dirty energy, notes that Tisha Schuller says: “Get ready for an extinction burst of myth-making”, and references two Climate Discussion Nexus Newsletter items that address the root cause for the Climate Act transition.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good because the energy density of wind and solar energy is too low and the resource intermittency too variable to ever support a reliable electric system relying on those resources. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Clean and Dirty Energy

Tom Shepstone hosted a guest post from the Institute for Energy Research that raises the important distinction between “clean” and “dirty” energy sources. The article notes that:

Discussions about energy policy tend to draw a stark divide between “clean” (or “green”) and “dirty” energy sources, with the former largely referring to wind, solar, and hydro, and the latter targeting natural gas, oil, and coal. This distinction is generally accepted by the public and politicians, who abhor the economic and technological problems that force the continued use of “dirty” sources, assuming that “clean” ones will become cost-effective enough to take over eventually.

The article goes on to compare different energy sources and points out often overlooked aspects of “clean” and renewable wind, solar, and hydro compared to fossil fuels. The weak energy density of renewable energy sources requires much more land area to produce equivalent amounts of power. Wind turbines and solar panels last half as long and the volume of materials is greater than a fossil plant. “Wind turbines, solar panels, and their batteries require significant mineral resources — including copper, cobalt, nickel, lithium, and rare earths — the extraction and processing of which produce carbon emissions, erosion, and wastewater, while threatening species habitats.”

I agree with this statement:

When it comes to energy production, no source can be considered completely “clean” because all human activity necessarily involves environmental effects. Therefore, calling a source “clean” indicates more about whether politicians favor it than the extent of its environmental impact.

The article goes on to describe a framework for considering environmental protection:

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) depicts the phenomenon of environmental outcomes improving as a result of growing income. According to the model, environmental degradation increases as poorer economies begin to industrialize because they lack the resources to mitigate the environmental damage of industrialization. This occurs up to a certain point, after which the level of environmental degradation begins to decrease as the economy grows because it can use its wealth to spend on improving the environment.

Source: Institute for Energy Research

The article explains:

As the EKC highlights, wealth, not emissions-reducing regulation, leads to improved human welfare and environmental quality. For an advanced economy such as the U.S., this means that the best course of action involves pursuing energy policies that focus on allowing production, mining, and utilities to connect dispatchable and reliable generating sources to the grid. These actions lower electricity costs, making it easier for communities, businesses, and individuals to fund their activities and invest in environmental protection.

New York’s economy is far to the right on this curve. The fact that there are value judgements related to the level of acceptable environmental degradation is leading New York down a path with inevitable unacceptable costs, reliability risks, and the adverse environmental impacts described in this article.

Extinction Burst

Tisha Schuller uses a different term to describe where we are in the clean energy debate. We are already seeing climate activists and their sycophants in the mainstream media claim that the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) is to blame for anticipated energy price spikes even though it hasn’t been implemented yet. She says: “Get ready for an extinction burst of myth-making”.

Her article explains that two things are true:

Energy prices are likely to rise in the short term.
Those price hikes were largely baked in before the Big Beautiful Bill even arrived.

She notes that the Myth of an Easy Energy Transition is “throwing a timely tantrum”. There will be an overreaction that has its own consequences for future energy and climate politics. She states:

In a nutshell:

Oversimplified climate policy had us on a path to big challenges—not just for energy prices but for energy reliability as well. (The Myth promised that the transition would be easy and cheap; it would have been neither.)

Lately, more citizens and decision-makers (including many identified with the climate left) have begun to understand that decarbonization and infrastructure buildout are and will be difficult and expensive. (The Moment for practical energy conversations has finally arrived.)

This understanding contributed to a political shift last fall, and all things climate and renewables became controversial.

The BBB arrived.

And now there is a sweeping new narrative claiming that but for the BBB energy prices would be … where, exactly? The Myth has not provided a suitable response.

In my dreams I had hoped that the New York Energy Plan would open the door to practical energy conversations but that is not happening. Schuller goes on to define the extinction burst:

An extinction burst is the whirlwind of a behavior an organism will demonstrate after the reinforcement for that behavior stops. For example: A lab rat that’s been receiving pellets by pressing on a lever will press furiously at the lever when the pellets suddenly stop coming. And then it will go bite and kick the lever and go berserk. If you’ve ever seen a toddler throw a fit when their screen time ends, you’ve witnessed an extinction burst. Well, The Myth of an Easy Energy Transition is throwing its own tantrum.

Media outlets and policy wonks are spinning a tale: The Big Beautiful Bill will jack up prices. That’s not wrong. But here’s what they’re not saying: Energy prices were already climbing—thanks to poorly coordinated climate mandates, a lagging grid, and reliability issues.

We can expect this kind of misdirection repeatedly in the months ahead, as The Myth becomes more exposed and tattered.

The challenge for a pragmatic New York energy policy is to target the energy reality message to those who want to get out of this mess. She recommends arguing for a “durable strategy that includes clear commitment to growing energy resources, pragmatic decarbonization, energy reliability, and cost control”.

Weather and Climate

The August 20 Climate Discussion Nexus Newsletter had two items that address the root cause for the Climate Act transition.

In the past NYSERDA CEO Doreen Harris has described climate change as “the existential threat” when talking about the need for the Climate Act transition. I suppose it is progress that the Draft State Energy Plan does not explicitly refer to climate change as an existential threat. However, the rabid climate activists who spoke at recent New York Power Authority and Draft Energy Plan hearings continued to call climate change an extreme threat.

John Robson’s Newsletter featured an article that described the response to the major new climate report from the U.S. Department of Energy. The report by five esteemed scientists dared to say that the “science” that claims there is a catastrophic threat from climate change is much less certain than advocates for the transition away from fossil fuels acknowledge. They have been so blunt to say that the “science” is unfit for policy purposes. In a pragmatic world that means that the urgency to transition away from fossil fuels is unwarranted and certainly does not support the idea that New York must transition before the technology necessary for the Climate Act renewable energy plan is available.

The frustrating inability to distinguish between weather and climate continues in the Draft State Energy Plan. Chapter 6: Climate Change Adaptation Resilience states “New Yorkers have experienced the impacts of climate change in numerous ways in recent years, including extreme storms, heat waves, seasonal drought, and smoke from wildfires in the Western U.S. and Canada.” It goes on to list five weather events that “prove” climate change is “already driving measurable impacts worldwide”.

In his Tidbits section, John Robson describes a mass media description of extreme weather and climate. The highlighted passage is important.

How wrong can you get? Well, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is up to the challenge. It bellows “A new study suggests extreme weather caused by climate change is disrupting more and more large events, like festivals and sports.” But you see the problems, right? First, the data clearly show that extreme weather is not getting worse and the IPCC does not claim otherwise. Second, climate change isn’t something that causes weather to change, it’s a statistical description of long-term changes in the weather. Other than that, fine journalism from the Canadian state propaganda outfit that has, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation recently noted, “more than: 250 directors 450 managers 780 producers 130 advisors 81 analysts 120 hosts 80 project leads 30 lead architects 25 supervisors” and “200 Mystery People” all “Paid more than $100,000 per year!” But none, apparently, doing proper fact-checking.

The simple explanation of the difference is that climate is what you expect and weather is what you get. A separate article on the DOE report also addresses the difference between weather and climate.

Another beneficial aspect of the DOE report is that it informs the public about the facts regarding climate science. Namely, it finds fault with those who invoke process-based reasoning and simple thermodynamic arguments to assert that warming is worsening extreme weather events. Because climate is the statistical property of weather over decades, single event attribution to climate change is not possible by definition.

I suppose it is too much to ask that the New York Energy Plan consider the actual science. There is too much invested by too many people who will never admit that climate change is not an existential threat. A problem yes, but one that should not be an over-riding priority siphoning funding and resources from other environmental issues.

Dennis Higgins Comments on the NYPA 2025 Draft Strategic Renewable Energy Plan

The New York Power Authority (NYPA) recently published for public comment the draft first update to its inaugural Strategic Plan for “developing new renewable energy generation projects to supply New Yorkers with affordable, reliable, and emissions-free electricity.” Dennis Higgins graciously agreed to let me publicize his comments on the draft.

Dennis Higgins passes on his commentaries associated with New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) to me. He taught for just a few years at St Lawrence and Scranton University, but spent most of his career at SUNY Oneonta, teaching Mathematics and Computer Science. He retired early, several years ago, in order to devote more time to home-schooling his four daughters. Dennis and his wife run a farm with large vegetable gardens where they keep horses and raise chickens, goats, and beef. He has been involved in environmental and energy issues for a decade or more. Although he did work extensively with the ‘Big Greens’ in efforts to stop gas infrastructure, his views on what needs to happen, and his opinions of Big Green advocacy, have forced him to part ways with their renewable energy agenda.

NYPA Strategic Plan

The New York political process and its one party rule uses the threat of shutting down state agencies to hijack annual budget vote to also include major policy legislation like the Climate Act. Recently it seems that every budget bill includes another New York energy policy mandate. The NYPA renewables responsibilities is an example:

The 2023-24 Enacted State Budget significantly expanded the New York Power Authority’s role in the renewable energy sector. Specifically, the new authority allows NYPA to plan, design, develop, finance, construct, own, operate, maintain and improve renewable energy generation projects to maintain an adequate and reliable supply of electric power and energy and support New York State’s renewable energy goals established in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

I think that mixing energy policy and politics is a recipe for disaster. The hubris of the supporters of energy policy knows no bounds. It is not only that their legislation mandates the impossible, but they also hamstring organizations in the state responsible for providing affordable, clean, and reliable electricity. Upset that the deployment of renewable energy was not progressing fast enough to save the planet, the legislation forced NYPA to develop a strategic plan to deploy more renewable energy.

NYPA published a draft of its Updated Strategic Plan on July 29, 2025, which details NYPA’s efforts to develop, own and operate renewable generation and energy storage projects to improve the reliability and resiliency of New York’s grid. The draft Updated Strategic Plan includes 20 new renewable generation projects and four energy storage projects. The plan also includes three new project portfolios that contain 152 storage systems. The new projects are located in every region throughout the state and represent a combined capacity of more than 3.8 gigawatts (GW). Including the first tranche of projects identified in the inaugural strategic plan—approved by the NYPA Board of Trustees in January—NYPA’s draft Updated Strategic Plan includes 64 projects and portfolios representing nearly seven gigawatts of capacity—enough electricity to power nearly seven million homes.

Cult Comments

Submitted comments on the 2025 NYPA Renewables Draft Updated Strategic Plan can be viewed. To give you a flavor of the political constituency that advocated for NYPA to have a role in renewables development I extracted the most common scripted comment. Gary Abernathy perfectly describes the people who submitted the scripted comments as “Worshipers at the altar of climate calamity”.

The worshipers have no concept of energy reality. There are multiple reasons that deployment is slower than envisioned by the authors of the Climate Act. They demand that NYPA double down on the number of public renewables going from the proposed 7 GW to 15 GW by 2030 because we need to “comply with the Climate Act, lower electricity bills, create 25,000 green union jobs, and end our fossil fuel dependence.” The reason is “we face life-threatening heat waves, flash floods, skyrocketing energy bills, and an attack on climate action from the federal government.” All emotion and no substantive justification. In the real world wishing hard will not overcome the supply chain issues, permitting concerns, financing problems with higher interest rates, and skilled tradesmen shortages problems that have delayed deployment.

Higgins Comments

Higgins prepared extensive comments that questioned whether any energy plan “reliant upon low-capacity factor, land hungry assets will prove reliable or affordable.” He also raises an important consideration for Upstate New Yorkers: will requiring the upstate region to forfeit land in what will prove a failed effort to power metro New York pass the ‘environmental justice’ litmus test.

His comments cover six points:

NERC on the NY plan
Neither academic nor empirical evidence indicate the state plan will succeed
NERC warning — IBRs undermine grid reliability
Capacity markets hammered by intermittent resources increasing energy costs and undermining reliability
Intermittent resources will not prove economical or reliable according to Sweden and others
NYISO has repeatedly warned of reliability issues

The first point addresses interconnection issues with neighboring jurisdictions. He notes that the New York plan “assumes markets will be available for our excess wind and solar energy” so that we can sell excess when it is not needed. He also points out that we will also be dependent upon our neighbors when New York wind and solar resources are not enough to support our needs. Higgins explains that the North American Energy Reliability Corporation (NERC) has highlighted risks to the bulk power system from wind and solar deployments that require the massive transmission upgrades needed for those energy transfers.

Higgins second point is one I constantly reiterate. Academic studies and empirical evidence do not support New York’s renewable push. He references the following National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) chart that he says “shows the asymptotic costs of a system as penetration of renewables increases. Expensive battery energy storage can somewhat solve the “short term” variability of intermittent resource generation. But there is no day-night or seasonal solution.” I would add that the chart should also include the long duration dark doldrum event problem in the upper right portion of the curve. New York organizations responsible for the electric system all agree that a new dispatchable emission-free resource (DEFR) is needed. I believe that including it would extend the graph exponentially higher.

In his third argument Higgins points out that NERC has also warned that inverter-based resources undermine grid reliability. He quotes a NERC report:

Since 2016, NERC has analyzed numerous major events totaling more than 15,000 MW of unexpected generation reduction. These major events were not predicted through current planning processes. Furthermore, NERC studies were not able to replicate the system and resource behavior that occurred during the events, indicating systemic deficiencies in industry’s ability to accurately represent the performance of IBRs and study the effects of IBR on the bulk power system (BPS).

The fourth problem is that capacity markets are hammered by intermittent resources that increase energy costs and undermine reliability. The necessity to have firm dispatchable resources needed to back up intermittent wind and solar means that in jurisdictions that are further down the renewable deployment path there is an increased need for peaker power plants that burn natural gas. He describes the perverse economics that result. This will exacerbate New York’s energy affordability crisis

Higgins makes another point that I often raise. Evidence from other jurisdictions shows that intermittent resources will not prove economical or reliable. He cites results that show that

Controlling for country fixed effects and the rich dynamics of renewable energy capacity, we show that, all other things equal, a 1% percent increase in the share of fast reacting fossil technologies is associated with a 0.88% percent increase in renewable generation capacity in the long term.

Translated that means that for every MW of installed renewable capacity fast reacting dispatchable resources are necessary. The only available resource is fossil-fired generators. New York’s fossil fleet is aging. Consequently, we are going to have to replace all the fossil plants in the long term or rely on more expensive battery storage and DEFR. How can anyone claim that wind and solar are cheaper when they need one for one capacity backup is a mystery to me.

The final point that Higgins makes is that the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO has repeatedly warned of reliability issues. He quotes the latest Power Trends report:

As traditional fossil-fueled generation deactivates in response to decarbonization goals and tighter emissions regulations, reliability margins on the grid are eroding. Further, the remaining fossil-fueled generation fleet, which provides many of the essential reliability services to the grid, is increasingly made up of aging resources, raising further concerns about grid reliability. Strong reliability margins enable the grid to meet peak demand, respond to sudden disturbances, and avoid outages. They also support the grid’s ability to respond to risks associated with extreme weather conditions. As these margins narrow, consumers face greater risk of outages if the resources needed for reliability are unavailable due to policy mandates or failures associated with aging equipment.

Higgins raises substantive issues that could derail the net-zero transition. The political mandate to force NYPA to build as much renewable capacity as possible as quickly as possible ignores the very real possibility that the unresolved need for DEFR may mean that the renewable approach is a false solution. Obviously, New York needs to pause implementation and consider the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act.

Request

Please consider submitting comments for the proceeding. Written comments on the NYPA Renewables Strategic Plan can be submitted through Sept 12th here: https://publiccomments.nypa.gov/. Explain that you are worried about costs and reliability and suggest that the strategic plan should take those factors into account.

State agencies tend to count the number of comments that support their positions to justify going ahead with their plans. Even if you submit a comment that only says you agree with Vincent Gambini’s response to the scripted comments that say NYPA should build 15 GW of renewables by 2030, it would be useful. For once, I would like to see comments from those of us outside the cult of climate catastrophes outnumber those zealots.

Conclusion

This process is yet another component of the Climate Act net-zero transition. Even thought the costs are beginning to impact New York utility bills. the impacts of the Climate Act still are flying under the radar of most people. It is just getting started and it would be better to stop it now than wait. Contact your elected officials and demand accountability.

Virtual Hearing Personal Comments on the Draft Energy Plan

Update 9/19/25 Meeting Materials

Hearing Transcript [PDF]
Hearing Presentation [PDF]
Hearing Recording (opens in new window) My oresentation begins at 19:00

This post documents the oral comment I submitted at the Draft State Energy Plan Public Hearing on August 19, 2025. The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) only allocated two minutes per person, so this article documents the statements that I made.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040.

According to the New York State Energy Plan website: “The State Energy Plan is a comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers.” The New York State Energy Planning Board is a “multi-agency entity established under Article 6 of the Energy Law, playing a core role in the State Energy Plan process”. Among its responsibilities is adopting the State Energy Plan: The Board has the authority to adopt the comprehensive statewide energy plan, and the stakeholder process should be an important component of that responsibility.

The driving factor for the updated Energy Plan is net-zero ambitions of the Climate Act. This is the first update of the Energy Plan since the Climate Act was passed in 2019. I have provided more background information and a list of previous articles on my Energy Plan page. Because of the importance of this process on the future energy system of New York I am following it closely and will be submitting oral and written comments.

Comments

This section documents the comments I made on August 19. I used bullets to differentiate my comments from the explanations.

My name is Roger Caiazza. Documentation for my comments will be posted on my Pragmatic Environmentalist of NY blog

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks. I started the blog in 2017, it documents my posts on the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act Scoping Plan and various implementation plans, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in my comments do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

This process appears to be similar to the Scoping Plan stakeholder process which is not a good sign

NYSERDA claimed that there was “robust public input” during the draft Scoping Plan process that “included 11 public hearings across the State and more than 35,000 written comments” that supposedly were read, summarized, and presented to the Climate Action Council. The problem is that Agency staff screened the comments for the Climate Action Council and there is no publicly available documentation of their work. They only presented generalities at meetings and did not summarize specific comments. I am convinced that any comments that questioned the narrative espoused by Climate Act proponents were ignored and there is no evidence that I am wrong. I think that NYSERDA is following the same script where the numbers were tortured to provide the desired results then tied up into a pretty package. Now they will go through the motions of accepting public input and will not respond to comments submitted.

Two minutes for comments indicates NYSERDA is going through the motions of dealing of stakeholder input

My background as an industry air pollution meteorologist required that I back up any analyses submitted to regulatory agencies and reference my findings in paper presentations. Obviously, that is not possible when only two minutes is allotted for comments. It also means that NYSERDA does not care if detailed information is provided and that leads me to believe that the answer is in the back of the book. This whole process is a charade whose only intent is to be able to check the box that there was a stakeholder process.

The stakeholder process for the Draft Energy Plan will fail if NYSERDA and other state agencies treat it as an obligation and not an opportunity to improve the final plan

I understand that the New York Independent System Operator and the New York State Reliability Council have provided expert input to the Draft Energy Plan Pathways Analysis. However, that interaction is not documented and there are substantial differences between NYISO projections of future electric system capacity and the Pathways Analysis. The differences in Table 1 are important for the Energy Planning Board to understand. The stakeholder process should reconcile the differences in an open and transparent public forum. In my opinion, NYSERDA should host a technical meeting to address this technical issue and others. Such a meeting could include a dialogue between staff and stakeholders where questions could be asked.

Table 1: Comparison of 2040 Fuel Mix Capacity (MW) Projections by NYISO and NYSERDA

This process will have no credibility if NYSERDA does not summarize each comment received and explains how they were resolved to Energy Planning Board

A credible stakeholder process treats responds to comments. For example, the Santa Clara County Rapid Transit Development Project includes a master plan for transportation for Silicon Valley. An interview with the founding manager notes: “Part of the plan is a four-year public stakeholder review process. In the reviews, if the public came up with good ideas, the ideas went into the plan. If an idea wasn’t good, we had the responsibility of explaining why” from California’s High-Speed Rail Visionary Bill Buchanan, Trains, Volume 85, No. 1, January 2025, pages 30-37. Their process also included public outreach meetings that included the opportunity to ask questions.

The Scoping Plan stakeholder process did not document their response to comments. There is nothing that indicates that the Draft Energy Plan process will be any different. Availability of the draft was announced after a series of Planning Board meetings earlier this year. There hasn’t been any opportunity for stakeholders to ask questions about the assumptions and methodologies used. If the State was serious about considering public input for an energy plan that affects every New Yorker, then they would hold a series of meetings to cover specific technical topics. A stakeholder process that does not allow for interaction between stakeholders and NYSERDA staff is nearly useless.

The Pathways analysis includes some of the flaws of the integration analysis. For example, none of the existing solar and wind generators are retired

This is one example of an obvious issue in the Pathways Analysis. The “Retirement Input” tab in the Pathways Analysis Technical Supplement: Key Drivers and Outputs spreadsheet is shown in Figure 1. It states that the expected lifetimes for wind, solar, and storage are indefinite. Most of the existing wind and solar and all of the existing storage will have to be replaced by 2040. This is an absurd assumption.

Figure 1: Retirement Inputs Table

The fact that this error was pointed out years ago means that NYSERDA does not care about public input. On June 16, 2022 I submitted a Comment on Retirement Input Assumptions used in the Draft Scoping Plan.

In what appears to be an egregious attempt to reduce the published costs of wind, solar, and battery storage, the Integration Analysis assumes that the expected lifetimes of those technologies are indefinite. As a result, units are assumed to remain online throughout the study period and no costs for replacements between now and 2050 are included. However. that is a poor assumption because it is totally unreasonable to expect that, for example, the existing land-based resources will still be in operation in 2050.

I estimated the potential impact of this assumption. Using an indefinite retirement date for these resources underestimates the total builds needed for 2050. For land-based wind between 3,814 MW and 4,600 MW are not included and for offshore wind between 6,200 and 6,600 MW are not included. The amount of solar not included ranges between 22,639 MW and 19,983 MW. Finally, battery storage between 10,713 MW and 12,207 MW of additional resources will need to be developed to meet the 2050 projected value.

The Draft Energy Plan only covers the next 15 years to 2040, so these projections are not completely compatible. Nonetheless, this is still a uncontestably incorrect assumption. This error will cause an underestimate of the costs to comply with the Climate Act 2040 mandates. It is a matter of credibility if it is not acknowledged.

The biggest problem is that the Pathways “No Action” scenario is not a baseline that excludes all programs necessary to achieve the Climate Act targets. It includes legacy programs in place prior to the Climate Act. This hides the true costs of the net-zero transition. A no GHG emission reduction program scenario is needed

This is another issue that I raised in the Scoping Plan stakeholder process in verbal and written comments. As was the case with the Integration Analysis and Scoping Plan, NYSERDA is interpreting the “No action” scenario as one that includes all legacy programs in place prior to the passage of the Climate Act. The appropriate baseline scenario is one that excludes all programs that were promulgated to reduce GHG emissions because that is the only way to determine the costs to achieve the “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and the two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. I provided more details in this post.

Without assurances that this process will respond to input there is no sense in developing detailed comments. If you are serious then hold a technical conference where the public can ask questions.

I developed an extensive set of comments on the Draft Scoping Plan that took an enormous amount of time. Many others invested similar time and effort. The lack of documentation that proved that someone had read the comments along with the lack of a summary document that summarized each comment and explained how NYSERDA reconciled the comment in the Final Scoping Plan for the Climate Action Council indicates to me that the whole process is rigged. If the Energy Planning Board members responsible for “approving” the Draft Energy Plan are not given all the stakeholder information regarding the plan then it is reasonable to believe that informed approvals were never expected. The plan was always to get a rubber stamp approval and check the box that there was a stakeholder process.

Given the tremendous uncertainty related to Federal programs the comment period for the Draft Energy Plan should be extended. If that is not done, then it is likely that the Energy Plan will be obsolete as soon as it is completed.

There is no question that there will be changes in Federal policies that will have enormous impact on the Draft Energy Plan. Even before the change in Washington, state agencies highlighted other factors that have delayed the planned schedules including supply chain challenges, inflation, canceled projects, outdated data/miscalculations, permitting issues, and the need to balance reliability, costs, and equity. The Draft Energy Plan must acknowledges that there are significant outside factors

Finally, the Energy Plan will only be credible if it establishes specific affordability, reliability, and environmental impact acceptability criteria, mandates that a tracking mechanism is established for each, and formulates a mandatory course of action when the criteria are exceeded.

The overview fact sheet for the Draft Energy Plan claims that it “advances abundant, reliable, affordable, and clean energy for all New Yorkers.” That is just a slogan unless those terms are defined. I have long argued that Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P, “Establishment of a renewable energy program”, includes bounds on implementation that have not been considered to date. I have shown that one of the provisions of that regulation and other circumstances warrant the PSC commencing a hearing process to “consider modification and extension” of New York Renewable Energy Program timelines. Clearly this has an impact on the Draft Energy Plan and must be considered. In my opinion, the Climate Action Council should have defined acceptable reliability, affordability, and environmental impact metrics. Their failure to do so means that the responsibility falls upon the Energy Planning Board.

Discussion

I fear that the Hochul Administration is going to direct NYSERDA to follow the stakeholder template used in the Scoping Plan. In so doing the Administration can continue to avoid responsibility for the impacts of the Climate Act. The Draft Energy Plan is too important to rely on emotion and political pandering to specific constituencies to not do this process right.

Conclusion

One of the things I do in my retirement is to play stakeholder process games. The State agencies pretend that they will consider public input, and I pretend that they will actually listen to me. The thing is that I have reality on my side. The low energy density of wind and solar and their intermittent availability are insurmountable hurdles to a affordable and reliable electric energy system. The Draft Energy Plan must recognize that challenge.

National Grid Rate Case Approval

The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) unanimously approved a joint proposal on August 14, 2025, establishing a three-year electric and gas delivery rate plan for Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (NMPC) d/b/a National Grid for service years 2025-2028. This article describes how Department of Public Service (DPS) blew off the concerns I raised about implementation of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero programs in the rate case.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 550 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

Regular readers may recall that I got involved in this rate case in May. Constantine Kontogiannis and I filed a statement in opposition to the Joint Proposal (JP) settlement plan that was eventually approved on August 14.. We submitted because of our concern that, with its disproportionate efforts to support the goals of the Climate Act, the JP does not properly balance NMPC and Public Service Commission responsibilities to ensure reliable, affordable, and environmentally responsible energy generation and delivery to ratepayers.

One of our arguments was that Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P, “Establishment of a renewable energy program”, includes bounds on implementation that were not considered in the rate case. In a subsequent post I described the DPS Staff Reply Statement in Support of the JP that addressed our concerns. They basically blew off all our issues based on procedural technicalities, claims that the safety valve bounds were a statewide concern not appropriate for the rate case, and said that we did not prove that the exceedance of the safety valve trigger was because of the Climate Act.

This post describes the approved rate case. I will follow up with another post that responds to the Order Adopting Terms of the Joint Proposal.

Settlement Announcement

The press release that announced the adoption of the rate plan headline stated that “PSC Dramatically Reduces National Grid’s Rate Request”. It went on to say:

The New York State Public Service Commission (Commission) today adopted a joint proposal establishing three-year electric and gas rate plans for National Grid signed by 15 parties, including the company, Department of Public Service staff, consumer advocates, trade and labor groups, and large industrial customers. The Commission’s action will significantly reduce the company’s request for total electric delivery revenues by over $340 million (67% decrease from request) and total gas delivery revenues by nearly $100 million (63% decrease from request) in the first year. The adopted joint proposal delivers $110 million in annual efficiency savings, defers non-essential capital projects, and supports energy affordability programs and protections for vulnerable customers.

National Grid had sought a base delivery increase of $509.6 million (25.5 percent delivery or 10.4 percent total revenue) and $156.5 million (29.7 percent delivery or 15.7 percent total revenue) for electric and gas, respectively for one year. Instead, the Commission adopted a joint proposal establishing levelized increases, on a percentage basis, to the company’s electric revenues of $167.3 million in the first year, $297.4 million in the second year, and $243.4 million in the third year. Levelized revenues to the company’s gas revenues are $57.4 million, $64.5 million, and $71.8 million, respectively, in each of the upcoming rate years beginning September 1, 2025. National Grid, previously known as Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, provides utility service to 2.3 million customers in upstate New York.

Rate Case Summary

All the rate case DPS DMM materials are available here. These are the documents included in the final rate case settlement:

Document Title	File Name
Order Adopting Terms of Joint Proposal and Establishing Rate Plans	201_24-E-0322 G-0323 final.pdf
Attachment A	201_24-E-0322 et al. Attachment A.pdf
Attachment A – Appendix 1 – Appendix 2, Schedule 4.3	201_24-E-0322 et al Attachment A_ Appendix 1 – Appendix 2, Schedule 4.3.pdf
Attachment A – Appendix 2, Schedule 5- Appendix 2, Schedule 16	201_24-E-0322 et al Attachment A_Appendix 2, Schedule 5- Appendix 2, Schedule 16.pdf
Attachment A – Appendix 3-12	201_24-E-0322 et al Attachment A_ Appendix 3-12.pdf
Attachment A – Appendix 13-17	201_24-E-0322 et al Attachment A_ Appendix 13-17.pdf
Attachment B	201_24.E.0322.G-0323_Attachment B.pdf

I did not want to wade through these documents, so I used an AI program. I acknowledge the use of Perplexity to generate the following summary. I have compiled all the responses to my queries. This section summarizes the highlights by quoting the Perplexity answer. In response to queries asking for a summary of the adoption of the plans I got the following response.

Gas Rate Structure and Customer Impact

Gas Delivery Revenue Increases:

Rate Year 1 (April 1, 2025 – March 31, 2026): $57.4 million increase dps.ny

Rate Year 2 (April 1, 2026 – March 31, 2027): $64.5 million increase

Rate Year 3 (April 1, 2027 – March 31, 2028): $71.8 million increase

Gas Rate Plan Customer Bill Impacts:
For residential customers using an average of 78 therms per month, the total monthly bill increases are projected at:

Year 1: $7.66 per month (5.5% total revenue increase) nationalgridus+2

Year 2: $8.08 per month (5.5% total revenue increase)

Year 3: $9.18 per month (6.0% total revenue increase)

Electric Rate Structure and Customer Impact

Electric Delivery Revenue Increases:

Rate Year 1 (April 1, 2025 – March 31, 2026): $167.3 million increase dps.ny

Rate Year 2 (April 1, 2026 – March 31, 2027): $297.4 million increase

Rate Year 3 (April 1, 2027 – March 31, 2028): $243.4 million increase

Customer Bill Impacts:
For residential customers using an average of 625 kilowatt-hours per month, the total monthly bill increases are projected at:

Year 1: $14.32 per month (3.4% total revenue increase) nationalgridus+2

Year 2: $6.44 per month (5.6% total revenue increase)

Year 3: $4.34 per month (4.6% total revenue increase)

Rate Case and the Climate Act

I also queried Perplexity: “How much of the approved rate was for Climate Act and other state mandated projects.” The response stated:

Gas Plan Climate and Environmental Provisions

The rate plan advances New York’s climate objectives under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA):

Non-Pipeline Alternatives (NPAs): Continued evaluation and promotion of alternatives to traditional gas infrastructure expansion dps.ny

Methane Emissions Reduction: Enhanced leak detection and survey programs to identify and repair high-emitting leaks dps.ny

Renewable Natural Gas: Support for connecting renewable natural gas projects dps.ny

Integrated Energy Planning: Coordination between gas, electric, and customer energy systems to achieve long-term climate goals nationalgridus

Electric Plan Climate and Environmental Provisions

The electric rate plan supports New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) objectives:

Electric Rate Plan Clean Energy Advancement:

Renewable Energy Integration: Enhanced grid capabilities to support solar, wind, and energy storage interconnection nationalgridus

Electric Vehicle Infrastructure: Support for EV charging infrastructure deployment dps.ny

Grid Modernization: Smart grid investments to improve efficiency and enable distributed energy resources dps.ny

Energy Storage: Support for battery storage system interconnection and operation nationalgridus

Electric Rate Plan Environmental Justice:

Enhanced programs in disadvantaged communities dps.ny

Environmental justice considerations in infrastructure planning dps.ny

Community engagement and liaison programs dps.ny

Solar and Renewable Energy Support

The order includes specific provisions to support renewable energy development:

Solar Industry Benefits:

Reduced interconnection costs for solar and energy storage projects nationalgridus

Streamlined interconnection processes nationalgridus

Support for community solar program expansion nationalgridus

Grid Modernization for Renewables:

Enhanced grid capacity to accommodate distributed energy resources nationalgridus

Smart grid technologies to manage two-way power flows nationalgridus

Energy storage integration capabilities nationalgridus

However, when I asked how much these projects would cost, I was disappointed.

Based on the comprehensive review of the New York PSC orders for cases 24-E-0322 and 24-G-0323, the approved rate plans do not contain explicit breakdowns of specific dollar amounts or percentages of the rate increases allocated specifically to Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) projectsand state mandated programs. However, several important findings emerge from the analysis: documents.dps.ny

Lack of Specific CLCPA Cost Allocation

The joint proposal and supporting documents do not provide a detailed breakdown showing what portion of the approved rate increases is specifically attributed to CLCPA compliance costs versus traditional reliability, safety, and maintenance investments. This represents a significant gap in transparency regarding climate-related cost allocation to ratepayers. documents.dps.ny

CLCPA-Related Investments Identified

While specific cost breakdowns are not provided, the orders identify several CLCPA-related investment categories within the approved rate plans:

Electric System CLCPA Investments

Transmission Infrastructure:

CLCPA Phase 2 Transmission Projects: The joint proposal specifically mentions CLCPA Phase 2 projects and includes a provision allowing National Grid to petition for 100% Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) treatment for these projects documents.dps.ny

Smart Path Connect: National Grid’s share of capital investment totaling $550 million, which includes rebuilding approximately 55 miles of transmission circuits to support renewable energy transmission nationalgrid

Grid Modernization: Investments to support distributed energy resources and renewable energy interconnection dps.ny+1

Distribution System Enhancements:

Enhanced grid capabilities for solar, wind, and energy storage interconnection nationalgridus

Smart grid technologies to manage intermittent renewable resources nationalgridus

Electric vehicle infrastructure support programs dps.ny

Gas System CLCPA-Related Programs

Emissions Reduction Programs:

Leak detection and survey programs to reduce methane emissions nationalgrid+1

Leak-prone pipe replacement programs dps.ny

Remote methane detection programs nationalgrid

Alternative Energy Programs:

Non-Pipeline Alternatives (NPAs): Enhanced programs to provide alternatives to traditional gas infrastructure expansion dps.ny+1

Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) Support: Proposals to connect four renewable natural gas projects nationalgrid

Electrification Programs: Support for heat pump installations and customer electrification options documents.dps.ny

Historical CLCPA Investment Context

Previous utility filings and planning documents provide context for CLCPA-related costs across New York utilities:

Statewide CLCPA Transmission Investments:

Phase 1 Projects: Approximately $4.16 billion in transmission investments and $2.64 billion in distribution investments across all New York utilities nyserda.ny

Phase 2 Conceptual Estimates: $7.62 billion in transmission and $2.16-$2.85 billion in distribution investments (conceptual estimates) nyserda.ny

National Grid’s Historical CLCPA Share:

Phase 2 Transmission: $1.37 billion estimated for National Grid transmission projects nyserda.ny

Phase 2 Distribution: $510 million to $1.2 billion estimated for National Grid distribution projects nyserda.ny

Ratepayer Cost Burden Context

The New York State Comptroller’s office has identified that ratepayers have contributed almost $2.6 billion to the Clean Energy Standard (CES) program from 2016 through 2021, with most CLCPA and CES program funding being ratepayer-based rather than state-funded. osc.ny

Transparency Gap

The lack of specific cost allocation for CLCPA compliance in the 24-E-0322 and 24-G-0323 orders represents a significant transparency issue for ratepayers. While the orders acknowledge that investments support CLCPA goals and include various climate-related programs, they do not quantify:

What percentage of the $708 million total three-year electric revenue increases is for CLCPA compliance dps.ny

What percentage of the $194 million total three-year gas revenue increases is for CLCPA compliance dps.ny

How much ratepayers are specifically paying for state climate mandates versus traditional utility infrastructure needs

This lack of detailed cost allocation makes it difficult for ratepayers and stakeholders to understand the true cost burden of New York’s climate policies versus traditional utility service obligations.

Hochul Response

The press release included a quote from Governor Hochul.

Governor Kathy Hochul made it clear the original rate proposal was too high. At Governor Kathy Hochul’s direction, the Department of Public Service, the staff arm of the Commission, scrutinized National Grid’s rate case to prioritize affordability. It’s the Commission’s responsibility to find the right balance between the resources needed to ensure system reliability and minimize costs to ratepayers. The Commission believes these agreements found the best possible path forward in this case.

Discussion

The point that I am trying to make in conjunction with other like-minded individuals is that Hochul’s public statements related to the Climate Act ignore reality. She doesn’t acknowledge the impact of her state policies on the rate cases and has covered up expected costs of the net-zero transition. To be credible the state must establish specific affordability, reliability, and environmental impact criteria, set up a tracking mechanism for each, and formulate a mandatory course of action when the criteria are exceeded. Of course, these are bright line accountability metrics, and no political supporter of the Climate Act wants to admit their role in the New York affordability crisis.

Conclusion

I believe that the crisis facing NMPC customers is not from the changing climate, but rather the irrevocably flawed climate policy, especially as it relates to affordability. I agree with the Perplexity recommendation in response to my queries:

Given the substantial ratepayer costs associated with CLCPA compliance and the public interest in transparency, future rate proceedings should include detailed cost allocation showing specific dollar amounts and percentages of rate increases attributed to:

Climate Act transmission and distribution projects

Climate-related operational programs

State-mandated environmental compliance

Traditional reliability and safety investments

This would provide ratepayers with clearer understanding of how their utility bills are being allocated between climate policy implementation and traditional utility service provision.

Climate Act Safety Valve Filing – Customers in Arrears Trigger

My last post described a filing that I made with Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, and Francis Menton to New York Public Service Commission Case 22-M-0149 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission Assessing implementation of and Compliance with the Requirements and Targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. We argued that this Proceeding is the appropriate venue to address the safety valve provisions in Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P. This post explains that a requirement for the Public Service Commission to hold a hearing to consider whether it is appropriate to temporarily suspend or modify PSL 66-P obligations has been triggered.

Background

The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda” was based on an Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

The summary post describing the filing includes a summary of the safety valve requirement and the rationale for submitting the filing. In brief, Ellenbogen, Kontogiannis, Menton, and I believe that the Public Service Commission (PSC or Commission) has not adequately addressed their broad mandate to ensure access to safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates relative to all the Climate Act mandates incorporated in recent rate cases. PSL 66-P requires the Commission to establish a program to ensure the State meets the 2030 mandate that a minimum of 70% of the statewide electric generation in 2030 is generated by renewable energy systems and the 2040 requirement that the statewide electrical demand system will be zero emissions also includes safety valve provisions. The Commission is empowered by this statute to temporarily suspend or modify these obligations if, after conducting an appropriate hearing, it finds that PSL 66-P impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service. However, in response to those arguments Department of Public Service (DPS) staff have stated that the rate cases are not the appropriate venue to determine whether a hearing is necessary.

Our filing to a generic proceeding responds to that argument. It explains that the statewide utility customers in arrears provision has been exceeded so it would be appropriate to conduct a hearing. This post will describe Exhibit 1 – Trend in Company Customers in Arrears that documents increasing trends in statewide utility customer payment delinquencies, providing baseline data for the customers in arrears safety valve trigger. The filing includes the Exhibit 2 – Customers in Arrears spreadsheet that contains the detailed analytical data on utility arrears across New York’s major distribution companies.

Utility Customers In Arrears

Exhibit 1 of the filing documents my analysis of residential customer in arrears data to estimate whether there has been a significant increase in arrears consistent with New York Public Service Law 66-p (4) for the ten largest electric and gas distribution utility companies regulated by the Public Service Commission. The spreadsheet used for the calculations is available. The first tab in the spreadsheet describes the other tabs in the spreadsheet.

Residential Collection Data

Utilities file a monthly report in the PSC Case 91-M-0744 docket that details their arrears and service terminations. There is a data set in New York Open Data that provides this information that was used to determine the number of residential customers in arrears. The “Quarterly snapshot of residential collection dataset” contains the following information:

This dataset provides a quarterly snapshot of residential bill collection activity for New York State’s ten largest electric and gas distribution utility companies regulated by the Public Service Commission. Included in this dataset are each utility’s total number of residential customers, residential customers with arrears (overdue bills) greater than 60 days, residential final service termination notices issued, residential accounts terminated (service shut off for nonpayment), active residential deferred payment agreements and the number of uncollectible residential accounts. Also included are the corresponding utility sales figures for each metric above, showing the dollar figure represented.

The “Documentation” tab in the spreadsheet lists the Data Dictionary in the New York Open Data source record. For this analysis, the data were exported in May 2025 to the “Input” tab in the spreadsheet. The original data is available by quarter, but the data labels are listed as month and year, so the input data is converted to quarterly labels in the “Quarterly” tab. The “Statewide” tab sums data for all the utilities by quarter.

Company Residential Customer Summary – Quarterly Data

Table 1 lists the sum of the quarterly data for the Summary Snapshot for all ten utilities for the statewide number of residential customers, residential customers with arrears (overdue bills) greater than 60 days, and the percentage of residential customers with overdue bills relative to the total number of customers. The final termination notices and number of service disconnections (not shown) are not good estimates of the effect of the Climate Act because other mandates have affected the data, e.g., service disconnections were suspended during COVID.

Table 1: Ten Largest Electric and Gas Distribution Utilities Summary Snapshot Quarterly Residential Collection Data

Table 2 summarizes these data relative to the PSL 66-P(4) trigger. The annual average number of statewide customers in arrears greater than 60 days was 1,040,664 in 2019, the last year before the CLCPA was implemented. The average in 2024 was 1,385,119 customers in arrears which is an increase of 344,455 or a 33% increase. The Public Safety Law section 66-p (4) criteria for consideration of suspension or modification is a “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”. The standard deviation of the number of customers in arrears from 2010 to 2019 is 64,333. Because the observed difference, 344,455 is greater than two times the standard deviation, the increase in statewide customers in arrears is statistically “significant”.

Table 2: Combined Ten Largest Electric and Gas Distribution Utilities Summary Snapshot Quarterly Residential Collection Data Summary of Customers in Arrears Greater than 60 Days

There are ten tables in the spreadsheet in a similar format but only include data from each of the ten largest utility companies that are included in the New York Open Data quarterly snapshot of residential collection data. Table 3 summarizes the results listed in the PSL 66-p(4) tab in the spreadsheet. In addition to the statewide significance finding, four of the ten utilities had a statistically significant increase in customers in arrears since the start of the CLCPA: Consolidated Edison, Central Hudson Gas & Electric, National Grid Metro – Natural gas to Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, and National Grid Upstate: the former Niagara Mohawk service territory.

Table 3: Summary of Analyses of Customers in Arrears More Than 60 Days Difference Before the Climate Act and Since Implementation Showing Whether the Difference in the Number of Customers Changed Significantly Before 2019 and After 2020

Discussion

Our filing included a description of the DPS staff response to this argument that was based on a post here. There were two arguments. DPS stated that the proper place to address this was in a generic proceeding and our filing addresses that argument. It is anybody’s guess if and when the PSC will respond to our filing.

The other argument was that our analysis was incomplete. The Public Safety Law section 66-p (4) criteria for consideration of suspension or modification is a “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”. DPS argued that we did not prove that the significant increase was due to the Climate Act. That response overlooks the fact that the information necessary to determine whether the costs are due to the program is not available because DPS has not fulfilled its obligations. The information in the DPS informational report required as part of Case 22-M-0149 is needed to determine if the increase is related to the CLCPA program. The DPS has not provided that report since July 2023 so only information through 2022 is available. That is too short a period to be used for this evaluation.

Conclusion

Utility affordability is a major issue as reflected by the PSC decision for the National Grid request. According to the press release: “The Commission’s action will significantly reduce the company’s request for total electric delivery revenues by over $340 million (67% decrease from request) and total gas delivery revenues by nearly $100 million (63% decrease from request) in the first year.” This post explains that the requirement for the Public Service Commission to hold a hearing to consider whether it is appropriate to temporarily suspend or modify PSL 66-P obligations has been triggered. The significant reduction in the National Grid rate case implicitly acknowledges that Climate Act costs are contributing to unacceptable cost increases. However, the decision was driven by the political imperative to reduce energy costs and not the rational decision to pause the Climate Act. At some point the politicians supporting the Climate Act must be called out to defend the costs of the net-zero transition. This filing demonstrates that the rationale to hold a hearing to determine if the schedule should be temporarily suspended exists.

My Climate Act Safety Valve Filing

My last post described a letter sent by two members of the Climate Action Council, Donna DeCarolis and Dennis Elsenbeck, to Rory Christian, Chair & Chief Executive Officer of the New Yok State Public Service Commission (PSC) that argued that there are more than sufficient circumstances to warrant the PSC commencing a hearing process to “consider modification and extension of New York Renewable Energy Program timelines.. This post describes a filing that I made with Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, and Francis Menton to New York Public Service Commission Case 22-M-0149 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission Assessing implementation of and Compliance with the Requirements and Targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act that makes the same point.

Background

The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda” was based on an Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

The Donna DeCarolis and Dennis Elsenbeck letter argued that Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P, Establishment of a renewable energy program, includes bounds on implementation. Their letter described two circumstances that they believe warrant a hearing Firstly, the Draft Clean Energy Standard Biennial Review prepared by Department of Public Service (DPS) Staff and NYSERDA “details the numerous factors, including inflation, transmission constraints, shifting federal energy and trade policies and interconnection and siting challenges that have adversely impacted renewable development and the state’s trajectory towards achieving the Program’s 2030 target.” The Biennial Review that “concludes that a delay in achieving the 70% goal may be unavoidable.”

There are two other relevant reports not mentioned in the letter. The New York State Comptroller Status report “Climate Act Goals – Planning, Procurements, and Progress Tracking” audited PSC and NYSERDA efforts to achieve the Climate Act mandates. It found that “While PSC and NYSERDA have taken considerable steps to plan for the transition to renewable energy in accordance with the Climate Act and CES, their plans did not comprise all essential components, including assessing risks to meeting goals and projecting costs.” The report recommended that the agencies begin the comprehensive review of the Climate Act, “continuously analyze” existing and emerging risks and known issues, conduct a detailed analysis of cost estimates, and “assess the extent to with ratepayers can reasonably assume the responsibility” of the implementation costs.

The second relevant report is the Annual Informational Report on Climate Act status. This report is required to explicitly describe ratepayer costs. The last report was released in July 2023 and covers data through 2022. There hasn’t been a report since then. I have not doubts that the release of this information was delayed because the costs would be politically detrimental to the Hochul Administration.

Our filing described other circumstances and a provision within PSL 66-P itself that warrant the PSC holding a hearing to consider modification and extension of the Climate Act timelines.

Submittal

Roger Caiazza, Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, and Francis Menton (“Independent Intervenors”) have filed testimony in the Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (NMPC) dba National Grid and the Consolidated Edison Company of New York rate cases. We made the same argument as the letter. Section 66-P, Establishment of a renewable energy program, noting that this law includes bounds on implementation that have not been considered in the rate cases. The Department of Public Service (DPS) staff response to our arguments boils down to “rate cases are not the appropriate forum to consider limitations of the renewable energy program”. The filing submitted on August 12 argues that Case 22-M-0149 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission Assessing implementation of and Compliance with the Requirements and Targets of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act is the appropriate forum and should address this issue.

I teamed up with three gentlemen who share the common opinion that the Climate Act net-zero transition simply cannot work as proposed and will do far more harm than good. Ellenbogen is an electrical engineer who is President of Allied Converters where he has pioneered how “green” manufacturing can work. Constantine Kontogiannis is an engineer who has decades of experience providing energy consulting services. Menton is a retired lawyer and now writes articles at his Manhattan Contrarian blog that analyze New York’s energy transition. We have all been arguing that the net-zero transition cannot work for years to no avail. We decided to combine forces and become involved with utility rate cases because we do not think that our messaging has been acknowledged, much less addressed and because all of us are directly affected by either of the cases. Yesterday’s filing is another attempt to force the Public Service Commission to consider safety valve provisions in the PSL Section 66-P component of Climate Act implementation.

Our Argument

The Public Service Commission (PSC or Commission) has not adequately addressed their broad mandate to ensure access to safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates relative to all the Climate Act mandates incorporated in recent rate cases. PSL 66-P requires the Commission to establish a program to ensure the State meets the 2030 mandate that a minimum of 70% of the statewide electric generation in 2030 is generated by renewable energy systems and the 2040 requirement that the statewide electrical demand system will be zero emissions also includes safety valve provisions. The Commission is empowered by this statute to temporarily suspend or modify these obligations if, after conducting an appropriate hearing, it finds that PSL 66-P impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service. This filing explains that the utility customers in arrears provision has been exceeded so it would be appropriate to conduct a hearing.

Our filing is extensive. It includes the primary filing, two exhibits documenting the customers in arrears safety valve trigger, and five supporting exhibits. The primary filing argues that Public Service Law Section 66-p(4) contains the aforementioned safety valve provisions. Exhibit 1 – Trend in Company Customers in Arrears documents increasing trends in utility customer payment delinquencies, providing baseline data for the customers in arrears safety valve trigger. I intend to do a separate post on that next. Exhibit 2 – Customers in Arrears is a spreadsheet that contains the detailed analytical data on utility arrears across New York’s major distribution companies.

The remainder of the exhibits support the need for the filing, additional circumstances that demonstrate that the broad mandate to ensure access to safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates has not been addressed in the current implementation process, a demonstration that the current approach is actually increasing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, and a recommendation for an alternative approach. Exhibit 3 – Affordability-Focused Recommendations outlines specific policy recommendations to address energy affordability concerns, likely including proposals for cost transparency, alternative funding mechanisms, and enhanced low-income programs. Exhibit 4 – Resource Gap Characterization analyzes gaps between CLCPA mandates and available resources, potentially addressing both financial and infrastructure capacity constraints. Exhibit 5 – Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources explains that the need for a resource that is not currently commercially available risks investments in false solutions. Exhibit 6 – Electrification Increases Emissions presents analysis demonstrating that certain electrification strategies may paradoxically increase emissions. Finally, Exhibit 7 – Alternative Approach proposes alternative implementation pathways that could achieve climate goals while maintaining affordability and reliability.

Discussion

Our filing advances five key arguments that the Commission should conduct a hearing to temporarily suspend or modify the PSL 66-P obligations because the present approach impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service. Current data on customer arrears and service disconnections demonstrates that New York may already meet thresholds for invoking PSL Section 66-p(4) safety valves. With utility arrears reaching $1.8 billion and affecting 1.2 million households, CLCPA implementation is creating significant affordability burdens. The Commission has failed to provide comprehensive cost reporting required under its own orders, making it impossible to assess true ratepayer impacts. The proposed transition to weather-dependent renewable resources poses unacceptable reliability risks that warrant safety valve consideration.

We believe that the Climate Act’s selective choice of metrics for affordability, reliability, and sustainability/environmental impacts fail to provide a complete picture of the impacts associated with the net-zero transition. Our intervention to date has focused on the technical aspects of implementation. We accept that challenging the CLCPA itself in a rate case is inappropriate. However, it is now clear that technical problems make implementation of the Climate Act mandates inappropriate because of the observed challenges. There are significant costs and reliability impacts associated with implementing the CLCPA in the rate cases but there are no criteria for acceptable affordability, reliability, or environmental impacts. This must change and this Proceeding appears to be the appropriate venue.

Conclusion

The Climate Act is and always will be political theater. New York has never done a feasibility analysis because the politicians and the activists who wrote the law naively believed that the net-zero transition was only a matter of political will. It has always been inevitable that New York’s net-zero transition would collapse because of physics and costs issues that would have been flagged in a proper feasibility analysis. Now that the consequences of ignoring the fundamentals are becoming so evident that they cannot be ignored, the search is on for an excuse to pause implementation. This filing argues that there are already provisions in place to reconsider the schedule. When a hearing is held, the ambition of the transition will be exposed to reality as well.

I will follow up this post with posts that describe the individual elements of the filing as time permits.

Climate Action Council Member Letter to the PSC

Two members of the Climate Action Council, Donna DeCarolis and Dennis Elsenbeck, recently submitted a letter to Rory Christian, Chair & Chief Executive Officer of the New Yok State Public Service Commission (PSC) that deserves mention. The letter notes that “there are more than sufficient circumstances to warrant the PSC commencing” a hearing process to “consider modification and extension of New York Renewable Energy Program timelines.”. I have been referencing the legislation mandating a hearing process if certain circumstances are exceeded since early 2022 so I want to publicize this letter.

Net-Zero Aspirations

The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda” was based on an Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

Letter

The subject line of the letter is “Modification of Statewide Electric Generation Renewable Energy System Requirements Pursuant to New York Public Service Law § 66-p “ The introductory paragraph lays out their position.

We are writing in our capacity as members of the state’s Climate Action Council to respectfully request that the Public Service Commission (“Commission”) invoke its authority, granted pursuant to the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (“Climate Act”), to hold a hearing to evaluate whether to modify certain renewable energy obligations of the Climate Act. Specifically, as you know, the Climate Act added a new section 66-p to the New York Public Service Law (“PSL”) that requires the Commission to establish a program to ensure that: (a) a minimum of 70% of the statewide electric generation in 2030 is generated by renewable energy systems; and (b) by the year 2040 the statewide electrical demand system will be zero emissions (“Renewable Energy Program” or “Program”). The Commission is empowered by statute to temporarily suspend or modify these obligations if, after conducting an appropriate hearing, it finds that the Program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service. As noted below, there are more than sufficient circumstances to warrant the Commission commencing the referenced hearing process to consider modification and extension of Renewable Energy Program timelines.

The letter goes on to document the circumstances that they believe warrant a hearing. At the top of the list is the Draft Clean Energy Standard Biennial Review prepared by Department of Public Service Staff and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (“NYSERDA”). They note that the Commission recognizes “the substantial efforts that have been made to deploy renewable energy systems and zero emission sources to meet the Renewable Energy Program targets”. Despite the progress through 2022, they explain “the Biennial Review Order details the numerous factors, including inflation, transmission constraints, shifting federal energy and trade policies and interconnection and siting challenges that have adversely impacted renewable development and the state’s trajectory towards achieving the Program’s 2030 target.” They quote the Biennial Review that “concludes that a delay in achieving the 70% goal may be unavoidable.”

The second circumstance noted is the recently released Draft New York State Energy Plan that “further affirms that current renewable deployment trajectories are insufficient to meet statutory targets, and that external constraints continue to impede progress.” They include this quote: “Consistent with the findings of the CES biennial review, the [Draft Energy Plan’s] modeling shows achievement of a 70% renewable grid in 2033.” However, the letter points out that the Draft Energy Plan goes on to “acknowledge that the anticipated buildout of renewables could be limited by external factors and the 70% target by 2030 may not be met until much later in the decade.” They also note that { The Commission’s recent decision to withdraw its Public Policy Transmission Need determination for a major offshore wind transmission project that would have delivered up to 8 GW of renewable electricity to New York City by 2033 is just one of many examples underscoring the fragility of current renewable deployment timelines and further supports the need for the Commission to exercise its authority under PSL 66-p (4).”

The letter makes the following important point:

While these obstacles to renewable energy deployment and greater emissions reductions in the state are deeply concerning, their implications with respect to the provision of safe and adequate electric service should be viewed as nothing short of alarming. The challenges with bringing sufficient renewable energy on-line in a timely manner, while simultaneously decommissioning existing and effective energy sources in order to hit Program targets, could have devastating repercussions for the state and its residents.

The CAC members go on to reference the 2025 Power Trends Annual Grid and Markets Report (“Power Trends Report” or “Report”) recently issued by the New York Independent System Operator (“NYISO”). They believe that it is reasonable to “conclude that the Renewable Energy Program’s current obligations could impede the provision of safe and adequate electric service.” The problem noted in the Power Trends Report is the warning that “reliability margins across New York continue to decline as fossil-based generation retires and new supply resources fail to keep pace with anticipated dramatic demand growth.” They explain that the NYISO’s warning is critical, because “[s]trong reliability margins enable the grid to meet peak demand and respond to sudden disturbances and avoid outages. As these margins narrow, consumers face greater risks of outages if the resources needed for reliability are forced out of service or are not maintained because of policy mandates or failures associated with aging equipment.”

The letter explains that “acknowledging the challenges to renewable deployment thoroughly described by the Commission in it Biennial Review Order and underlying Biennial Review”, the NYISO states in its own Report that:

A change as monumental as decarbonizing our electric system can be challenging and unpredictable. For instance, to achieve the mandates of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, new, emission-free generating technologies must replace retiring fossil fuel-based generation. However, these new technologies are not yet available on a commercial scale.

The letter quotes the Draft Energy Plan to support their recommendation for considering multiple energy options. Electric sector results in particular state that “[m]eeting growing loads and peaks while working towards achieving 2040 emissions constraints and maintaining reliability requires a significant buildout of a diverse set of resources” and the preservation of existing resources including the natural gas system which “[i]n all scenarios … remains an important energy delivery system.” They go on:

The NYISO’s determination that pursuit of “every plausible option” is necessary to ensure energy reliability includes the continued use of reliable, dispatchable energy systems like the natural gas system, as well as the ongoing pursuit of traditional renewable resources (hydro, solar, wind) and more concentrated efforts relative to nuclear power (e.g., the state’s recently announced New York Power Authority Advanced Nuclear Project) and hydrogen (e.g., NYSERDA’s Hydrogen Assessment). Providing support for bridge technologies (e.g., fuel cells, linear generators, etc.) is essential to help address market demand in the near term while the state pursues longer-term options. The NYISO notes that “repowering of existing, older fossil fuel plants … is especially important to consider as we rely more on an aging generation fleet.” This repowering likely will not occur absent prompt action by the Commission to extend Program timeframes to obviate the risk for developers that the plants will be forced to retire before they can recover their investments.

The letter acknowledges that activists will argue “that this diverse mix of existing and new energy sources could delay achievement of the state’s energy goals, it is clear from recent analyses by the NYISO and others that it is necessary to ensure the provision of safe and adequate electric service while the state takes the time it needs to responsibly advance progress toward its Renewable Energy Program goals.” They state that these circumstances were addressed by the Legislature “when it included the safeguard in the Climate Act that would allow the Commission to suspend or modify Renewable Energy Program targets. They argue that “Now is the time for the Commission to exercise its authority under PSL § 66-p (4) to conduct a hearing to consider modification and extension of these targets.” They conclude:

To act otherwise would be contrary to the legislature’s intent and inconsistent with the Commission’s “paramount objective of ensuring reliable and affordable electric service and protection of ratepayers.”

Finally, in addition to the urgent need for a hearing to evaluate extending the Renewable Energy Program timeframes, the letter urges “the legislature to act with haste to extend the statutorily-required 2030 GHG limits consistent with the state’s Draft Energy Plan findings”. This is necessary because the greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions reduction requirements of 40% by 2030 included in the Climate Act are similarly late.

Conclusion

Given that many of the arguments in the letter are similar to those that I have been trying to make for several years, I am very much encouraged that powerful voices have come out advocating a similar approach. I am cautiously optimistic that their letter will at least be acknowledged. I am not sure what the resolution will be but the authors are on the side of reality and pragmatic energy policy. It is inevitable that the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act will be modified simply because implementation in PSL 66-p is impossible without endangering reliable and affordable electric service.

More Reasons to Pause Climate Act Implementation

I am very frustrated with the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net zero transition because the reality is that there are so many issues coming up with the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act that it is obvious that we need to pause implementation and figure out how best to proceed. This article describes an interview with Steven Koonin and uncertainties associated with wind and solar forecasting that complicate renewable energy deployment.

Steven Koonin on the Unsettled Science of Climate

I have been meaning to do a post on the recent Department of Energy (DOE0 report A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate. That topic deserves more than a mention so it will have to wait In the meantime here is a link to an interview of one of the authors – Steven Koonin. John Robson from the Climate Discussion Nexus conducted the interview.

The theme of the interview was that contrary to the constant barrage from alarmists, the mainstream media, and New York’s energy policy analysts, there are major uncertainties associated with climate change science. Koonin and the other authors of the DOE report are not arguing that there is no climate change. He remarked that he was disappointed that some opponents call climate change a hoax or conspiracy but he also noted that supporters should not call climate change an existential threat or a potential catastrophe.

In no particular order, my notes include the following points made by Koonin and Robson:

Need to understand subtleties
Need humility when discussing climate variation because the observations are uncertain
Regional models are unfit for purpose
Societal impact descriptions are influenced by value judgements
When evaluating climate change these are things to watch out for
- Historical context
- Scale
- Data, especially long-term
- Need to consider divergent opinions

A key point relative to climate change solutions is consideration of what we know, what we don’t know and why it matters. Contrary to popular opinion we don’t know nearly as much as proponents claim. Furthermore, personal values color the priorities of responses. Finally, both Koonin and Robson noted that many of the purported solutions do not consider feasibility.

Renewable Implementation Uncertainty

Electric grid operators must constantly balance generation and load on a near instantaneous basis. The variability of wind and solar complicates that challenge. To account for weather conditions that affect wind and solar resource availability, weather forecasters prepare projections. Forecasts ranging from very short term (minutes) to a week are needed. The Independent System Operator for New England (ISO-NE) recently released assessments of wind and solar forecast errors. The results offer another indication that implementation is not going to be easy.

The issues associated with solar and wind forecasts are different. Figure 1 shows the solar power forecast bias. Bias is the average tendency of a forecast parameter to overpredict or underpredict. Ideally, it would be equal to zero. Positive bias means less solar power was available compared to forecast. Negative bias means more solar power was available compared to forecast. The calculations are based on the solar forecast at 9:00 AM for periods out to a week for individual and the combined plants or fleet. The results show that the fleet peak loads forecasts consistently over-predict how much solar power will be available by approximately 20%. That is not a very good outcome. It implies that more storage will be needed to cover for solar variability.

Figure 1: ISO-NE Solar Medium and Long-Term Forecast Bias

Figure 2 shows the wind power forecast bias. The calculations are based on the wind forecast at 9:00 AM for periods out to a week for individual plants and the fleet. In my opinion, there are some unexpected things going on in these data that would need more time than I have to address. It appears that the fleet forecast bias is very good out to 48 hours but after that there is an apparent diurnal effect and the difference between observed and forecast markedly increase. I think that the diurnal effect should show up in the first 48 hours albeit in a reduced form. Frankly the lack of that indicator makes me think there is a problem in the analysis.

Figure 2: ISO-NE Wind Medium and Long-Term Forecast Bias

There are differences between the solar and wind results. The data indicate that the fleet wind estimates are better than the solar forecasts because the bias is lower. The individual forecasts vary more than the fleet forecasts for solar than for wind. These results are evidence that the factors affecting wind are driven more by larger scale factors than those for solar.

The challenge to balance generation and load on a near instantaneous basis in a system that depends on wind and solar is not going to be solved by weather forecasts. There are systemic weather forecast bias errors on the order of 20% for solar forecasts. Also note that these are average statistics. I have no doubt that there are days that the forecasts are bad enough to negatively impact the ability of the grid operators to balance generation and load.