Climate council meets
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Good morning and welcome to the Monday edition of the New York & New Jersey Energy newsletter, when we take a look at the week ahead and look back at what you may have missed last week.
Albany, NY Today, the Power Generation Advisory Panel delivered its official recommendation to the state’s Climate Action Council regarding fossil fuel infrastructure. The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act set standards to ensure zero statewide emissions for the electric generation sector by 2040. To meet those standards, the Panel recommended a moratorium on new and repowered fossil fuel plants, and urged comprehensive regulations to close current fossil fuel-powered plants.
The decision is a victory for the communities who have been mobilizing against dirty fossil fuel plants statewide. Should Governor Cuomo heed the advice of his own advisory panel, the Danskammer plant in the Hudson Valley, the Astoria NRG plant in Queens and the Gowanus plant in Brooklyn would all be shut down.
NEW YORK NOW – While the head of the state Department of Environmental Conservation doesn’t have a position on a controversial climate bill under discussion in the state Legislature, he says the state needs to find revenue from somewhere to achieve its environmental goals.
DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos Credit: New York NOW
When asked his position on the Climate and Community Investment Act in a recent interview, DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said funding will be crucial moving forward.
“I won’t get ahead of the Climate Action Council, and certainly won’t get ahead of the Legislature and the governor on the CCIA,” Seggos said. “I will say that we do need to find a way to pay for all the transportation, housing, industrial changes that the state will undertake.”
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The concept of a moratorium has been included as a recommendation, though consensus on it was not reached among all panel members, said Sarah Osgood, panel chair and director of policy implementation at the New York State Department of Public Service, during a remotely held meeting of the panel. We had presented at our last meeting that there was a concept of a moratorium on new and repowered gas facilities and that has been incorporated as a component of a recommendation, Osgood said.
Based on public comments, there was generally broad support for the advisory panel s agenda with lots of support for energy efficiency and renewables as well as energy storage and a lot of calls for equity and urgency of action, Osgood said.