Watching The End Game Of New York's Climate Madness Begin To Play Out

As I have written many times, with New York’s fantasy “net zero” energy plans, it is not a question of whether they will fail, but only when and how. The Democrats, who dominate state politics, and their environmentalist allies, are firmly committed to the impossible. Thus, they are caught in a trap of their own making, and from which there is no good escape. The fact that they are caught in this trap is obvious to anyone with basic arithmetic skills, but almost all of our politicians and environmentalists lack those. However, a small handful of them are starting to sense the impending crash. This makes for amusing interplay.

The state’s Climate Act of 2019 directs hostility to fossil fuels on all fronts. In the realm of electricity, the Act mandates 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030, and 100% from “zero emissions” sources by 2040. The official plan for achieving those mandates basically boils down to building lots of wind turbines and solar panels, and then lots more of same — principally off-shore wind turbines — until a flood of infinitely “free” wind and sun washes over us and brings us to energy nirvana. Meanwhile, also on the path to “net zero,” development of natural gas infrastructure is to be halted and reversed. More than half way to the 2030 deadline, the progress toward the 70% renewable electricity goal has actually been negative (due to the premature closure of two large nuclear power plants). On the natural gas front, two big pipeline projects have been blocked by the state environmental regulator (DEC) on phony grounds of “water quality.” And meanwhile there are plans for big new electricity consumers (chip plants and data centers) in the upstate area.

Time to crank up the wind turbines! And then President Trump swept back into office, and as one of his first acts pulled the plug on the off-shore wind projects.

So as of this past Spring, here’s where we were: lots of new electricity demand coming along, all new natural gas infrastructure (including two big new pipelines) blocked, and the planned future of wind turbines (which wouldn’t work in any event) also blocked. Does anyone see a potential problem here?

I have called our Governor Kathy Hochul an “airhead,” which may be unfair to air, but even an airhead could see that something here was not going to work. On May 29 the New York Times reported that the two blocked natural gas pipelines were going to get a “second chance.” Apparently, there had been some kind of informal, oral deal struck between Governor Hochul and President Trump, whereby Hochul would unblock the two natural gas pipelines, in return for Trump unblocking at least one of the big off-shore wind farms that Hochul wants to build. This subject was covered at Manhattan Contrarian here on June 4.

But was this apparent “agreement” real or not? In the intervening three months I have been keeping my eye open for any concrete developments. There have finally been some in the past few days.

Spectrum News reports here on September 4 that the Department of Environmental Conservation — an agency under the control of the Governor — after having rejected the two natural gas pipelines back in 2020, had instituted a “brief” re-opening of the “comment period” on the issue:

The Northeast Supply Enhancement Pipeline (NESE) and Constitution Pipelines have both faced repeated rejections from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, but have seen their applications revived after conversations between Hochul and President Donald Trump earlier this year.  NESE is further along and recently saw the public comment period conclude after a brief extension. . . .

This looks like code that approval of the pipelines by the state regulator may be imminent. This immediately set off a frenzy of reactions from the crazy left in the legislature. Liz Krueger, the State Senator who represents the Upper East Side of Manhattan, led the charge. Here is a picture of Ms. Krueger:

“We can’t do this in New York,” state Sen. Liz Krueger said in a Thursday morning virtual news conference. “They are dangerous, they will do harm to people in any number of communities across the state. They are not necessary, they will put us backwards on our goals,” she said of the pipelines. “States need to stand up and say, ‘no, we’re not going to do these things,’” she said. “There is no better example for us than New York having to say, ‘no, we’re not going to approve pipelines we’ve already rejected on endless environmental grounds,’” she said.

And what exactly is Ms. Kreuger’s plan to provide electricity for our 21st century economy? She did not see fit to address that issue. She comes from the class of people who think that electricity comes from wall sockets.

Others from the loony left brigade of the state legislature also joined the fray. For example, Assemblymember Anna Kelles — the representative from ultra-crazy Ithaca — piped in:

Assemblymember Anna Kelles added that she expects the state will be sued for violating its own climate law if the pipelines are approved.

Here is a response from a representative of the Governor named Ken Lovett:

As the White House rejects any new permitting of offshore wind projects and Republicans in Congress cut billions in subsidies for renewable energy, we'd hope these legislators and advocates would join the Governor in pushing an all-of-the-above approach to ensure we keep the lights on for New Yorkers. . . .

Sorry, Ken, but I don’t think that there is any compromise with these people who think that energy is produced by magic. I’m looking forward to seeing the factions of the New York Democratic Party fight this out in coming months. I’m kind of hoping that the crazies win, at least initially, and we get a few good blackouts to educate us.