By David Wojick
New York Governor Hochul has been saying for months that the regulations required by law to meet the Climate Act will be ruinously costly to New Yorkers. The draft regs were reportedly finished a year ago. The Governor must be citing their official cost assessment.
So where are the numbers? Why has Hochul not released the cost numbers so New Yorkers can see who gets hammered and how much? Keeping these ruinous cost numbers secret is outrageous. It should be an election issue.
To begin with the legislature, the Assembly, needs to see these big numbers immediately. Clearly the Climate Act must be changed and the Assembly is just gearing up their 2026 session. Hochul should submit a detailed assessment of the ruinous costs to the Energy Committee. Time is of the essence.
If this cost assessment is not forthcoming the Energy Committee should hold hearings and demand to see the numbers. I am not familiar with New York law but under federal law the Committee could subpoena these findings.
The Assembly cannot fix the Climate Act until they know how it is broken.
More deeply the citizens of New York State have a right to see the specifics of this looming ruinous cost threat. Who gets hurt the most and how much? For example are we looking at $10 a gallon gas or $30? Doubling household electric bills or quintupling them?
One certainty is that deliberately driving up the cost of energy will hurt the poor the most. Energy is a far larger fraction of their meager budget than it is for the well off. Moreover raising the cost of energy raises the cost of many other essentials including food.
The regulatory program that deliberately drives up cost is called Cap and Invest. It is actually Cap, Tax and Spend because all forms of fossil energy are heavily taxed.
The tax has to be enormous because it must force fossil fuel use down by an incredible 30% or more by 2030. Here in official jargon is how the Cap and Invest website puts it:
“Under the program, large-scale greenhouse gas emissions sources and distributors of heating and transportation fuels will be required to purchase or obtain allowances for the emissions associated with their activities. By applying a price to the amount of pollution, a cap-and-invest program incentivizes consumers, businesses, and other entities to transition to lower-carbon alternatives.”
In this case “incentivizes” means making it so expensive that use goes down so far that it meets the Climate Act target.
Note that there is no time left to “transition to lower-carbon alternatives.” For example most of the millions of buildings in New York State are heated with natural gas. It is physically and economically impossible to convert more than a tiny fraction of these to electric heat in just four years.
Building electrification is probably the kind of ruinous cost that Hochul is referring to. Another case might be forcing people into electric vehicles. There are only so many ways to cut fuel use by 30% or more.
We do not know where all these ruinous costs hit because all this cost data is being held secret by Hochul. Keeping this extremely threatening information from the people of New York State is outrageous.
Perhaps Governor Hochul is hoping to keep this ruinous threat secret until after the November election where she is running for re-election. In reality this destructive secrecy is a good reason to vote her out of office.
If the Climate Act requires severs economic damage to New Yorkers over the next few years, that incredible fact should be a major election issue. That it is being kept secret is disgraceful.
Its clear that New York voters are suckers for free stuff so the Gov will come up with some offsets, surcharges, and subsidies borrowed from Europe and the wacky UK to cover up and deflect impact.
While I want to see Hochul in an orange jumpsuit for her response to losing Bruen,
opening impeachment proceedings would
be practical for the NY legislature.
Which of course they will not do, and
just treat their voters like mushrooms.
The voters ARE mushrooms since they keep voting for the same gang of Democrats. They deserve the abuse by government that they receive.
Did not know Bruen. You mean:
“The Bruen decision (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 2022) was a landmark Supreme Court ruling that established a constitutional right to carry handguns in public for self-defense, striking down New York’s “proper cause” requirement for concealed carry permits, and introduced a new “text, history, and tradition” test for evaluating gun laws, requiring regulations to be consistent with historical firearm practices. This decision significantly expanded Second Amendment rights beyond the home, forcing “may-issue” states to change licensing laws and setting a new, stricter standard for gun control laws nationwide.”?
Hochul constructed this house of cards. She was motivated by greed, hubris, and flaming ignorance. In no way should she be rewarded for creating a disaster that is seriously harming millions of people. Whether she goes to prison or the gallows doesn’t matter as long as she goes away.
OR For, based on my own personal assessment of where New York state politics are headed over the next decade, I ask this question …. What will Zohran Mamdani be doing with the state’s Net Zero transition plans when he replaces Kathy Hochul as Governor of New York state in January of 2031? (A dire prediction, I know.)
Typo:
“If the Climate Act requires severs economic damage”
severs -> severe
Thanks for staying on the issue.
It makes me think, “What on Earth will they do if the next presidential election flips back the other way? Would NY take one for the team to preserve the narrative?”
It seems like the only thing they could do is kick the can down the road and hope for that another-20-years fusion breakthrough.
(Pointed out a typo then had to edit to fix one. Every ——- time.)
I think it’s called lying with a straight face? When it comes to renewables, here in Australia have plenty of politicians who are experts.
Experts that know NOTHING of any relevance !! 🙂
There’s only a couple of people in parliament with engineering or science degrees.
“Experts that know NOTHING of any relevance”
Not bad…we use to have a better definition: Ex is a has been, and spert is what a dog does to a tree. Some people just consider them as anyone from out of town.
It’s all part of the plan. Hochul wouldn’t be in her job if she didn’t comply. Why is it so hard for people to understand the bias of the MSM and what it supports?
It couldn’t be more clear government is the problem, not CO2, not fossil fuel, not climate, not science no government. Government is the problem because they lie and cheat and are not held accountable. Relying on the ballot box isn’t enough, these monsters have broken the law and they have to go. They have to go straight to prison.
Governments have no power. It are those above government who have the power.The IMF Central Banking system.
CO2 IS AN ABSOLUTELY VITAL FOR GROWING FLORA AND FAUNA; NET ZERO IS A SUICIDE PACT
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/co2-is-an-absolutely-vital-gas-ingredient-for-growing-flora-and
By Willem Post
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The IPCC, etc., has endowed CO2 gas as having magical global warming power, based on its own “science”
The IPCC, etc., claims, CO2 acts as Climate Control Knob, that eventually will cause runaway Climate Change, if we continue using fossil fuels.
The IPCC, etc., denies the Little Ice Age, uses fraudulent computer temperature projections.
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Governments proclaimed: Go Wind and Solar, Go ENERGIEWENDE, go Net zero by 2050, etc., and provided oodles of subsidies, and rules and regulations, and mandates, and prohibitions to make it happen.
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Net-zero by 2050 to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact, to:
1) increase command/control by governments, and
2) enable the moneyed elites to become more powerful and richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people, already for at least 50 years; extremely biased CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, NBC ABC, CBS come to mind.
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CO2, just 0.042% in the atmosphere, is a weak absorber of a small fraction of the absorbable, low-energy IR photons.
CO2 has near-zero influence on world surface temperatures.
CO2 is a life-giving molecule. Greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is an essential ingredient for:
1) increased green flora, which increases fauna all over the world, including desert areas, and
2) increased crop yields to better feed 8 billion people.
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At About 30% Annual W/S Electricity on the Grid, Various Costs Increase Exponentially
The W/S systems uglify the countryside, kill birds and bats, whales and dolphins, fisheries, tourism, view-sheds, etc.
The weather-dependent, variable/intermittent W/S output, often too-little and often too-much, creates grid-disturbing difficulties that become increasingly more challenging and more costly (c/kWh) to counteract, as proven by the UK and California for the past 5 years, and Germany for the past 10 years, and recently in Spain/Portugal.
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All have “achieved” near-zero, real- growth GDPs, the highest electricity prices (c/kWh) in the EU, and stagnant real wages for almost all people, while further enriching the moneyed elites who live in the poshest places.
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Native People Suffer Extra Burdens: Their angry, over-taxed, over-regulated native populations, already burdened by the wind/solar/batteries nonsense, and then further burdened by the bureaucrat/moneyed elites bringing in tens of millions of uninvited, unvetted, uneducated, unskilled, ghetto-trash, crime-prone, poor folks, from dysfunctional countries.
Those folks are sucking from the multiple, government-program tits, while making:
1) minimal efforts to produce goods and services; and
2) maximum efforts to be chaotic, culture-destroying burden, the native populations never voted for.
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Minimal Temperature Change due to CO2: The climate is not any different, even though, atmosphere CO2 increased from 280 ppm in 1850 to 420 ppm in 2025, 50% in 175 years. During that time, world surface temps increased by at most 1.5 C +/- 0.25 C, of which:
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1) Urban heat islands account for about 65% (0.65 x 1.5 = 0.975 C) of the warming, such as the UHI of about 700 miles, from north of Portland, Maine, to south of Norfolk, Virginia, forested in 1850, now covered with heat-absorbing human detritus, plus the waste heat of fuel burning.
Japan, China, India, Europe, etc., have similar heat islands
About 65% of the US linear warming trend between 1895 and 2023 was due to increasing population density at the suburban and urban stations; 8% of the warming was due to urbanization at rural stations. Most of that UHI effect warming occurred before 1970.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/16/live-at-1-p-m-eastern-shock-climate-report-urban-heat-islands-responsible-for-65-of-global-warming/
2) CO2 accounts for less than 0.3 C, with the rest from
3) Long-term, inter-acting cycles, such as coming out of the Little Ice Age,
4) Earth surface volcanic activity, and other changes, such as from increased agriculture, deforestation, especially in the Tropics, etc.
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BTW, the 1850 surface temp measurements were only in a few locations and mostly inaccurate, +/- 0.5 C.
The 1979-to-present temp measurements (46 years) cover most of the earth surface and are more accurate, +/- 0.25 C, due to NASA satellites.
Any graphs should show accuracy bands.
The wiggles in below image are due to plants rotting late in the year, emitting CO2, plants growing early in the year, consuming CO2, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere. See URL
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/about.html
Here are 5 articles attesting to the small global warming role of human CO2 in the atmosphere
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Eight Taiwanese Engineers Determine Climate Sensitivity to a 300 ppm CO2 Increase Is ‘Negligibly Small’
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/eight-taiwanese-engineers-determine-climate-sensitivity-to-a-300
By Kenneth Richard
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The Fairy Tale of The CO2 Paradise Before 1850…A Look at The Real Science
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-fairy-tale-of-the-co2-paradise-before-1850-a-look-at-the-real
By Fred F. Mueller
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Achieving ‘Net Zero by 2050’ Reduces Temps by 0.28 C Costing Tens of $TRILLIONS
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/achieving-net-zero-by-2050-reduces-temps-by-0-28-c-costing-tens
By Kenneth Richard
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German Researcher: Doubling Of Atmospheric CO2 Causes Only 0.24°C Of Warming …Practically Insignificant
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/german-researcher-doubling-of-atmospheric-co2-causes-only-0-24-c
By P Gosselin on 19. November 2024
Just in time for COP30 in Belem, Brazil, we have fresh confirmation, cooling temperatures are resulting in lower than expected levels of atmospheric CO2
So, the whole wind, solar, battery frenzy and Net-Zero to reduced CO2 by 2050 are
impossibly expensive hoaxes that are based on proprietary IPCC “science”.
https://willempost.substack.com/p/just-in-time-for-cop30-in-belem-brazil?r=1n3sit&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
The median income of New York City residents is about $1k less than the US as a whole. Meanwhile the cost of living in New York City is 38% higher than the US as a whole. 14% of residents are get SNAP benefits (money for food). Is it any wonder that they vote for the politician who promises more free stuff?
In 2014 I audited 6 older multistory bldgs in NYC. The single biggest energy waste was open smoke vents in the elevator shafts. Lobbies were extremely negative due to stack effect, losing conditioned air essentially 8,760hrs/yr. Installing motorized smoke dampers tied into the fire alarm system would negate those losses.
same for stairwells with open vents at the top. I’ve seen savings of 25%/yr. Simple and easy fixes.
Don’t you know? Elections have consequences.
communist Bernie Sanders swearing in muslim Zohran Kwame Mamdani into office is one of the biggest jokes ever. Ask both man what they think of religion and abortion. If they both have the same answer or Bernie is not a communist or Mamdani is not a muslim.
The open secret about all this is that the total annual costs and “benefits” have been published – buried, rather – in the recently updated and adopted NY Energy Plan.
Let’s see – what about the year 2040? What will be the annual cost impact? There are four scenarios given here. This is figure 56 in section 16, “Pathways Analysis.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_gt5EYltq5B2Y2tSAA7zf6GbNkbg3Xso/view?usp=sharing
The costs range from $18B PER YEAR to $55B PER YEAR by 2040. These are hard money expenditures for stuff – the non-emitting systems, transmission upgrades, distribution upgrades, storage, backup, vehicles, heat pumps – you name it stuff.
The fictitious, imaginary, speculative, “benefits” range from $27B PER YEAR to $89B PER YEAR without a single dollar of hard money received anywhere to justify the costs. The so-called “GHG” and “Health” “benefits” are blatant fabrications from thin air.
It is utterly insane for the Legislature to do anything but repeal the CLCPA outright. But we’re already deep inside the asylum. This will be a doozy of a year here in NY.
P. S. The source website for the NY “Energy Plan” is here. This seems to have been re-formatted from a few weeks ago. Click “read by chapter” to see the “Pathways Analysis” in which Fig 56 appears. Figure 55 is a similar chart for the year 2030.
https://energyplan.ny.gov/Plans/2025-Energy-Plan
David,
Good point. I think the problem is that those numbers are so large that they don’t mean anything to use. Moreover, a quick glance at the numbers and what they represent suggests that they have played with them. For example Figure 54 in the referenced document lists the 2040 gross annual energy costs $150 to $200 billion. Picking which costs are due to the stuff they attribute to the scenarios and which would have happened anyway is a recipe to provide whatever number the Governor wants.
Huge costs indeed but this plan does not meet the Climate Act’s 2030 target of a 40% emission reduction. They say “Under the current set of assumptions and the Climate Act GHG accounting methodology, Current Policies will hit 40 percent economy-wide emissions reduction in 2038, while Additional Action will hit 40 percent reduction in 2037.” So not even close.
The Act says the regulations must “ensure” that target is met so they will be far more expensive. I see nothing in the plan about the cost of allowances which should be enormous if it forces people to cut fuel use by 30% or more.
The plan runs to 2038 so they can still implement widespread technologies like heat pumps. That is not possible by 2030 leaving rationing as the only compliance option.
David, see my related comment here: Governor Hochul has, for all practical purposes, moved the Climate Act’s 2030 targets out to 2040, in clear defiance of the Act’s legally-binding mandates.
Would she impose carbon fuel rationing as the only means of coming into compliance with the 2019 Act?
I rather doubt that. However, she is caught between a rock and hard place with what she does, or doesn’t do, in her next term.
If she kowtows to the socialists/communists in downstate New York and imposes fuel rationing on New York, she risks losing the vote of upstate New Yorkers.
And if she refuses to follow through with the Climate Act’s clear mandates, she risks losing the votes of the socialists/communists who now control New York City politics.
In any case, the socialist/communist faction of the New York Democratic Party is determined to gain full control of the state party organization, and therefore control of all of New York state itself.
That faction has the money, the grassroots support, and the political action ground game needed to pull it off.
And so it remains conceivable that young communist turk Zohran Mamdani could run for governor in 2030 and replace Old Guard Democrat Kathy Hochul as governor in January of 2031.
The Court has said she cannot move the targets, only the Assembly can do that. Hochul has appealed but I doubt can win because the law is clear. So I am pressing the point, hoping to make it an election issue.
Governor Hochul has basically given the Albany court the middle finger by appealing the judge’s October 2025 decision. Who knows where that ends up.
Will the new session of the state legislature hold her to account for arbitrarily ignoring the 2019 Act; or will they instead revise it — or what I think is more likely, will they just ignore the whole thing altogether and take no action one way or the other?
Another question is what Zohran Mamdani will be doing now that he and the socialist-communists run New York City. How will they be handling the politics of Hochul’s blatant disregard of the Climate Act mandates? Will they themselves attempt to make a political issue of it?
The cost of achieving the impossible is quite difficult to assess. There’s a division by zero hidden somewhere in the equations.
Maybe New York State should encourage manufacturers of grain-oriented electrical steel and transformer suppliers to build new facilities in the State. But were will they get the electrical power required to manufacture electrical steel? When a government tries to control power without understanding were it actually comes from one gets stupid laws. That’s what markets are for.
But:
It’s got electrolytes,
How many buckets do you have?
Governor Hochul,
I love you show!
The NY climate act will likely be addressed in the same manner as Obamacare. The NY state government will heavily subsidize everything for years. No NYC voter will have to endure the actual cost in any open sense, but NY taxes may see some substantial increases.
NY STATE DYSFUNCTIONAL ENERGY POLICY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/new-york-state-dysfunctional-energy-policy
By Willem Post
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If we used wind, we would be dependent on Europe
If we used solar, we would be dependent on China
We would be screwed up and down and sideways with high cost/kWh energy
We would be totally uncompetitive on domestic and world markets
No energy dominance ever!!
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People are brainwashed to love wind and solar. They do not know by how much they screw themselves by voting for the woke folks who push them onto everyone. Their ignorance is exploited by the woke folks
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If owned/controlled by European governments and companies, would be a serious disadvantage for the US regarding environmental impact, national security, economic competitiveness, and sovereignty
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Western countries cajoling Third World countries into Wind/Solar, and loaning them high-interest money to do so, will forever re-establish a colonial-style bondage on those recently free countries.
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the traditional generators, as they inefficiently (more CO2/kWh) counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
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W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDP.
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At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker wall, operationally and cost wise.
The UK and Germany are hitting the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system
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Nuclear, gas, coal and reservoir hydro plants are the only rational way forward.
Ignore CO2, because greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is essential for: 1) increased green flora to increase fauna, and 2) increased crop yields to better feed 8 billion people.
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Net-zero by 2050 to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact, to:
1) increase command/control by governments
2) enable the moneyed elites to become more powerful and richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people, already for at least 50 years; extremely biased CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, NBC ABC, CBS come to mind.
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NY State Utilities will:
Pay foreign Owners 15.5 c/kWh for 20 to 25 years
Mark this up before averaging it into their cost of purchased electricity.
Ratepayers and taxpayers are being screwed
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Per various laws, the federal and state government will pay enough subsidies, so foreign Owners can sell for 15.5 c/kWh, for 20 to 25 years, instead of 31 c/kWh, without any subsidies, such as:
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Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit of up to 10% – Federal tax credit of 30% – State tax credit and other incentives of up to 10%);
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation write-off of the entire project;
3) Loan interest deduction to reduce any taxable profits from whatever source.
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Utilities forced to pay at least:
15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems
18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
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Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect far-flung W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Total ADDER 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 11 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
Addition
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 30 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 41 c/kWh, no subsidies
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 15 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 26 c/kWh, 50% subsidies
The 11 c/kWh is for various measures required by wind and solar. Power plant to landfill cost basis.
This compares with 7 c/kWh + 3 c/kWh = 10 c/kWh from gas, coal, nuclear, large reservoir hydro plants.
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The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in de-growth mode.
That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
YOUR tax dollars are building these projects so YOU will have much higher electric bills.
Remove YOUR tax dollars using your vote, and none of these projects would be built, and YOUR electric bills would be lower.
For all practical purposes, the Hochul administration has delayed the 2019 Climate Act’s legally mandated 2030 emission reduction targets ten years out to 2040. See this graphic that I’ve adapted from Page 1, Figure 1 of the state’s Analysis Pathways Factsheet:
From the graphic:
— NYS total energy consumption …. a 20% reduction overall vs. 2025
— Distillate consumption (mostly heating oil) …. a 48% reduction
— Gasoline consumption (presume in-state residents) …. a 52% reduction
— Natural gas consumption (presume in-state residents) … a 23% reduction
— Electricity consumption (presume in-state residents): ……a 25% increase
Remarks:
1) The Hochul Administration’s analysis pathways fact sheet doesn’t include a breakdown for the year 2030. It’s almost like their analysis simply jumps from December 31st, 2029, directly to January 1st, 2031, with nothing happening in between.
2) Total energy consumption in New York state falls 20% between 2025 and 2040. Gains in energy efficiency are assumed to play an important role in that 20% reduction. That said, all those supposed efficiency gains are likely based on assumptions which are optimistic in the extreme. (Pie in the sky out to Jupiter and beyond.)
3) How does a mere 25% increase in the state’s consumption of electricity between 2025 and 2040 account for the rise of AI data centers; for the adoption of EV-based transportation modes; for the increased use of heat pumps; and last but not least, for Micron’s massive demand for electricity for use in its new computer chip manufacturing plants now under construction in upstate New York?
Another question comes to mind here, based on my own personal assessment of where New York state politics is headed. What will Zohran Mamdani be doing with the state’s Net Zero transition plan when he replaces Kathy Hochul as Governor of New York state in January of 2031?
A place cannot be unaffordable. If the price is high, then someone is buying it at that price. The problem for those who can’t buy it, is that their income makes them uncompetitive in the housing market, a market where many other people with greater income dominate.They should leave, double up to buy and rent, or learn more valuable skills.