Tag: Energy

For a second consecutive year, the state Public Service Commission (PSC) has deeply slashed the amount of renewable energy that utility companies are forced to buy under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Clean Energy Standard (CES). The move casts further doubt on the governor’s goal of having renewables supply 50 percent of the state’s electricity by 2030—while reinforcing the CES program’s status as primarily a bailout for money-losing upstate nuclear plants. Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s massive ratepayer subsidy of aging upstate nuclear power plants would be significantly modified under a bill just introduced by Senate Republican Leader John Flanagan. Read More

Cuomo’s efforts to hide the increase were first reported by Ken Girardin, an ace analyst at the Empire Center in Albany. Girardin has calculated that the renewable and nuclear subsidies will cost ratepayers nearly $3.4 billion between 2017 and 2021. Girardin told me that Cuomo’s attempt at an extreme makeover of the state’s electric grid will result in “one of the largest tax hikes in state history.” Read More

The New York state Public Service Commission does not want utility companies to list the cost of the Clean Energy Standard as its own line item on individual utility bills. Read More

State regulators last week shot down efforts by utilities to show ratepayers the amount by which their electric bills are being driven up by New York's new Clean Energy Standard. Read More

The state Public Service Commission has quietly reduced the amount of renewable energy that utilities will have to purchase next year by 94 percent. Read More

New York City's move over the next three years to a $15-an-hour minimum wage—the highest ever, after adjusting for inflation—will take the city into uncharted territory, fraught with risks and trade-offs for workers and businesses. Read More

"It definitely means we are going to be paying more," says Ken Girardin of the Empire Center. The Empire Center just released a study about the state's New Clean Energy Standard and what it means for New Yorkers. Read More