New York’s plan to steer homeowners and landlords toward electric heat could backfire due to high costs and practical concerns, according to a new study from the Empire Center for Public Policy.
In Cold Reality: The Cost and Challenge of Compulsory Home Electrification in New York, Empire Center fellow James Hanley looks at the state’s plan to prohibit homeowners from replacing gas and oil furnaces after 2029 and for them to instead install heat pumps. Homeowners, he explains, face both higher equipment costs and potentially high weatherization costs to accommodate heat pumps, which can operate at lower monthly costs but require better insulation.
Even with extensive state and federal subsidies, Hanley warns, the upfront price-tag of heat pumps and weatherization will likely push homeowners to instead buy low-cost but energy-hungry electric furnaces that will put considerably greater stress on the electric grid—making the state’s overall electrification goals harder to reach.
“This is the fundamental problem at the heart of New York’s command-and-control attempt to restructure its economy to make what amount to barely detectable reductions in global emissions,” said Hanley. “Albany can ban things, but it can’t control how people replace them.”
Hanley notes that the impact of this policy will be felt most in rural New York, where the median household income of owner-occupied homes is the lowest, and points out that the state could instead reduce emissions by setting clean fuel standards that encourage the use of biofuels.
Two New York Police Department retirees each collected total retirement benefits of more than $600,000 last year—a new record high for the NYPD, according to data posted on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website.
However, unlike the pension systems covering all other public employees in New York State, the New York City Police Pension Fund refuses to identify its top two pensioners, or any of its 53,215 NYPD retirees receiving benefit payments that totaled $3.3 billion last year. Read More
Albany, NY — Governor Hochul's budget would allow Medicaid spending to continue spiraling at double-digit rates despite a growing economy and the threat of deep cuts in federal aid, warns Bill Hammond, Empire Center senior fellow for he Read More
New Yorkers by a margin of more than two-to-one said they aren’t getting their money’s worth from taxes they pay in the state, according to recent polling by the Empire Center for Public Policy in Albany. Read More
The Empire Center filed a pair of lawsuits this week charging the state Health Department with improperly withholding public records in violation of the Freedom of Information Law. Read More
A new analysis of New York’s Medicaid program reveals a ballooning disparity between its rising enrollment and the state’s declining poverty rates. As many as 3 million New Yorkers appear to be receiving state-sponsored health coverage from Medicaid or the Essential Plan despite having incomes above the eligibility limits, according to the just-published report from the Empire Center. Read More
The New York State Education Department has released data showing outcomes from New York’s 2024 state assessment tests, taken by students in grades 3 to 8 last spring. This is the third year in a row that state education officials have failed to release the data until well into the next school year. Read More
The payroll of The Research Foundation for The State University of New York grew more than twice as quickly as SUNY’s own payroll over the past five years, according to new data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. Read More
The Board of Directors of the Empire Center for Public Policy today announced the appointment of Zilvinas Silenas as President and CEO.
Zilvinas (also goes by “Z”) will succeed Tim Hoefer, who joined the Empire Center in 2008 and has led the organi Read More