Remember that poll I posted here showing that Americans were willing to spend "up to $10 month" to fight global warming? The poor, deluded suckers

no juice for you!

“Green New Deal” will cost New Yorker “hundreds of billions in energy charges”

New Yorkers will have to pay “hundreds of billions of dollars” in higher utility bills due to the state’s “Green New Deal”-inspired plan, according to a top energy regulatory official — who accused lawmakers of hiding the true cost of the bill.

John Howard, former chairman and current member of the state Public Service Commission, claimed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Democratic-run legislature never leveled with the public on the costs associated with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act approved in 2019.

Howard, during a PSC session Thursday, said local pols “totally obfuscated” the costs of the plan because the sticker shock would have made the initiative unpopular.

The law, which Cuomo signed in a ceremony with Al Gore at his side, requires New York to slash greenhouse emissions by 40% by 2030 and no less than 85% by 2050 by transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, such as hydropower, solar and wind. The state Climate Action Council, meanwhile, is charged with developing a plan to put the state on a path toward zero carbon emissions.

Lawmakers, Howard said, refused to directly vote to raise taxes to pay for the capital investments required to develop cleaner energy alternatives to fossil fuels — and left the PSC to be the fall guy.

The commission — which regulates power utilities — was tasked with approving rate increases to pay for the capital investments required to comply with the new green-deal inspired law.

Con Edison and other utilities will pass on those costs to customers.

“I hope my colleagues on this commission understand that responsibility falls to us exclusively — to the tune of hundreds, not a couple — but hundreds of billions of dollars,” Howard said during last week’s PSC meeting.

“The legislature, either through its silence or total lack of actions, has given this commission nearly the exclusive responsibility to reach into New Yorkers’ pockets to pay for the CLCPA mandates,” he said.

Howard also warned that the unfunded mandate comes at a time when “our entire state economy is shaky … the upstate economy is shakier.”

…. [Governor] Hochul recently sided with green new deal booster Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) by killing two carbon-burning natural gas projects in Queens and upstate Newburgh.