As New York approaches the Green Energy Cliff, developments are starting to come more quickly.

When last I addressed the subject on March 6, there had just been “leaked” a three-page memo from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to the Governor’s office, revealing that implementation of what New York calls its “cap and invest” program — actually, an artificial scarcity program intentionally designed to drive prices up and impoverish the people — would cost every New York household thousands of dollars in increased energy costs. (I put the word “leaked” in quotes because most knowledgeable observers think that the Governor released the memo intentionally.).

Clearly the Governor was using this memo to provide cover for her next move. That move then occurred on March 20, in the form of an op-ed published by the Governor in something called the Empire Report. Several of my co-energy realist bloggers have already commented on this piece at Watts Up With That, including Robert Bradley (“Democrats Retreat From Climate Activism”) and Roger Caiazza (“Hochul Claims the Climate Act Can Be Affordable”).

The only proper response to Gov. Hochul’s piece is scorn and derision, and no matter how much of those you can muster, it’s not enough.

In 2018 New York’s voters suddenly elected a far more left-wing legislature than we had previously had, particularly the State Senate (the Assembly having already been deep in the progressive camp). Taking office in 2019, the new legislators quickly got to work seeing how much destruction they could wreak in a short period of time.

One product of their efforts was what we call the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), enacted in July 2019. The point of the CLCPA was to have New York State rescue the climate and save the planet, which supposedly was going to be accomplished by imposing mandates for eliminating hydrocarbon fuels from the energy system of this one little state.

It seems that nobody had pointed out to the very earnest legislators that New York represents only a small fraction of 1% of world CO2 emissions, the total elimination of which would barely be noticed in the overall world carbon balance. But the point was not necessarily to make any noticeable impact on world carbon emissions, so much as to show our virtue and our “leadership” by destroying our own wealth as an example to others, or something like that. Of most immediate consequence in the CLCPA were mandates for the electricity system, that 70% of our electricity must come from “renewables” by 2030 (“70x30”) and 100% from “zero-carbon” sources by 2040 (“100x40”).

Well, here we are in 2026 — 7 years down and only 4 to go toward the 70x30 mandate — and we have made almost no progress in “de-carbonizing” the electricity system. It is obvious to any thinking person that the 70x30 mandate has become a joke (to the extent that that was not obvious from the outset).

But there is the mandate written in black and white in a statute. Is anything to be done?

If you have been following this blog closely, you know that I have been participating, along with two excellent colleagues, in the rate proceeding of our local utility, Con Edison.

A rate proceeding is the mechanism by which a utility goes before a regulatory body, in our case the New York Public Service Commission, seeking to increase the rates charged to consumers. Our purpose in the proceeding has been to object to and disrupt having the ratepayers charged for the building of infrastructure in pursuit of the futile and infeasible “climate” goals of our deluded politicians.

One of the rules of these things is that anybody with a genuine interest in the outcome can “intervene” if they want, and participate as a party in the proceedings. That’s how we got ourselves in on the action.

And by the same mechanism, multiple parties advocating for the utopian future of “renewable” and “zero emissions” energy also joined up. Among the green energy advocates in the mix were the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Alliance for a Green Economy. And then there was the New York City government, which wants to present itself as an advocate for low consumer rates, but at the same time has enacted its own mandate for electric building heat that can only be implemented with the support of some expensive new infrastructure to be built by Con Edison.