Outdated fossil fuel laws threaten climate action in New York state, activists say

ALBANY — Lawmakers and advocacy groups say some of the state’s outdated laws continue to encourage fossil fuel use and now threaten the state’s ability to meet its climate goals under a 2019 law.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, passed five years ago, sets percentages to reduce fossil fuel emissions in part by replacing oil and gas energy to heat and power buildings. The fossil fuels are to be replaced with electricity that can be generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind and hydropower.

Some provisions of the state civil service law from 1981 require the automatic connection of most new homes and businesses to natural gas lines and require regular, costly repairs to old, leaky gas lines – rather than a switch to electrification.

“The first rule of getting out of a hole is to stop digging,” said Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental law at Columbia Law School. “The current legislation is geared toward natural gas… if we continue to hook up new buildings to natural gas, it will be that much harder to get off gas.”

A bill proposed this year called the New York Home Energy Affordable Transition Act (HEAT Act) would have ended this windfall for fossil fuel producers. But the bill failed in the final hours of the legislative session this month due to strong lobbying by energy companies.

The dispute pitted environmentalists against a coalition of energy companies and their labor representatives, who argued that the HEAT Act would cost jobs and that replacing gas with the electric grid would be too expensive and unreliable for New Yorkers.

The friction this year goes back decades, when the government promoted greater use of natural gas as an alternative to oil.

Under a 43-year-old provision of public service law, the “100-foot rule” requires utilities to provide natural gas to new homes for free in most cases, but at a cost of more than $200 million per year to all consumers. A similar provision of the law requires connections for most new commercial buildings.

Another provision of the state’s public service law imposes a “duty of service” on utilities, meaning that in most cases, utilities must replace leaky gas lines with new ones. This cost, which would be passed on to consumers, is estimated by the state to cost $150 million over the next few years.

“The autopilot of gas hookups must stop,” said Rep. Patricia Fahy (D-Albany), who led support for the HEAT Act, which she co-sponsored in the Assembly.

Researchers studying climate change said the scientific evidence was clear.

“Natural gas is by far the largest source of fossil fuels in buildings, and its use must be phased out quickly if we are to meet the bill’s climate goals,” said Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University who was appointed to the state’s Climate Action Council, which advised Hochul and the Legislature.

“It makes no sense to continue investing in the old gas infrastructure,” Howarth said. “The HEAT Act would have greatly benefited nearly all consumers in New York and would have been a big step toward meeting the goals of our climate law. The only real losers would have been the natural gas industry.”

Environmentalists said other, more recent government measures and policies would also hinder the achievement of climate goals.

Last year, for example, the state issued a two-year moratorium banning further cryptocurrency mining to develop bitcoin and other alternative currencies. However, the measure allows existing companies to continue using two old, fossil-fuel-powered power plants to generate the massive energy needed to operate them.

The HEAT Act would end decades-old legal requirements, which supporters say would save utilities and consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The measure would also align utilities with state climate goals and reduce emissions. The measure provides exceptions for demonstrated cases where providing electricity to a building or neighborhood would be impractical.

The bill is expected to potentially be the subject of a special session in the coming months or may be a high priority in the legislative session that begins Jan. 1.

Supporters say the measure will protect consumers from rising fossil fuel costs as demand falls across the country and will make it easier for utilities to transition to a zero-emissions economy, as required by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

Senator Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) said the failure of the HEAT Act, which she co-sponsored, is one reason the state is lagging behind in meeting its 2019 climate goals. The law calls for a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 85% by 2050.

“We are all behind on goals,” Krueger said. “Nobody is where they should be – internationally, nationally and in New York,” Krueger said.

Krueger was one of 49 senators and representatives who warned Governor Kathy Hochul in a letter in December that the state “faces a crisis in our energy transition… we are drastically missing our goal.”

“The clock is ticking faster and faster on all environmental issues,” said Krueger.

Critics like Ken Girardin, research director at the Empire Center, an Albany-based fiscally conservative think tank, said the climate bill unfairly favors politically popular wind and solar power, which would require extensive and expensive batteries. He said the bill should include expanding nuclear and hydroelectric power.

Girardin also said the HEAT Act’s provision to end automatic gas connection and repair – the cost of which is currently borne by utilities and consumers – would make it more expensive for individual customers to connect to the grid. He also said repealing the provisions would mean some buildings that currently use more polluting oil as fuel would not automatically switch to cleaner natural gas.

“The 2019 climate bill discriminates between different zero-emission technologies,” Giardin said. “The HEAT Act folks want perfect to become the enemy of good.”

He said it is time to rethink not only the HEAT Act but also the 2019 climate law, considered the most aggressive in the country.

“The urge to be first,” Giardin said, “has set the state up for costly and economically destructive mistakes… This would not mean abandoning the state’s climate goals. On the contrary, an open discourse informed by the policy lessons and scientific advances of the past five years can and will lead to better climate policy for New York.”

The HEAT Act faced resistance from oil producers and the politically influential AFL-CIO union, whose members work in the gas network.

“Despite the activists’ rhetoric, the facts make it clear that the state wants to replace our electricity generation mix with one that is much more expensive and undoubtedly less reliable, and is backing it up with speculative technologies that don’t exist today,” said Karen Merkel, spokeswoman for Buffalo-based National Fuel Gas Co., which has spent more than $184,000 on lobbying alone. “We believe that an emissions reduction strategy that takes all aspects into account makes more sense.”

“There are many other laws, policies and practices in New York that need to be updated if New York is to meet the building emissions reductions and other goals required by the climate law,” said Nicole Abene, senior legislative and regulatory manager at the Building Decarbonization Coalition of Advocates in New York.

“Together,” Abene said, “these updates would make it much easier for New York to implement a controlled, gradual and equitable transition to clean heating and cooling.”