NY Lawmakers Aim to Make Hochul’s Anti-Fossil Fuel Plan Worse
The nightmare we can’t wake up from, called New York State, keeps getting darker and worse. In January, Hochul proposed banning the sale of all new natural gas appliances across the state, along with an outright ban on hooking up new homes and businesses to gas, by 2030 (see NY Gov. Hochul Loses Her Mind – Wants to Ban Gas in New Buildings). She also wants to cap so-called greenhouse gas output and require companies to buy “allowances” (i.e., indulgences) for their carbon emissions sins. This is hard to believe, but Democrat legislators are adding new requirements of their own, making it even harder for companies to meet emissions standards, stay under the caps, and/or pay for allowances. The legislature’s proposed changes will drive even more companies out of the state.
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National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). For several years the company has fought a battle to run a tiny pipeline to its Greenpoint, Brooklyn facility to provide extra natural gas. National Grid has a backup plan in case it can’t complete the pipeline project–add two extra LNG vaporizers to the Greenpoint facility to turn trucked LNG back into gas that can flow through the system. A so-called independent consultant reviewed the plan and filed a report last November with the state Public Utility Commission saying National Grid’s vaporizers aren’t needed (see 
Could air pollution related to drilling shale wells affect those who live nearby? In particular, does shale drilling negatively affect the health of older folks (over age 65)? How would we know if it is affecting their health? Researchers set out to answer that question by analyzing Medicare data for older folks who live near Marcellus drilling in Pennsylvania, comparing the data with older folks who live in nearby New York, where there is no Marcellus drilling. The researchers conclude that living near shale drilling increases the likelihood of old folks having a heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular issues.
With liberal leftist Democrats like NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, popular opinion only matters during an election year, when getting elected (or reelected). After that, Dems like Hochul govern any darned well way they please. It doesn’t matter if a majority of the state’s residents oppose her cockamamie, screwed-up plans to commit energy suicide by banning natural gas across the entire state. She’s moving forward full-speed ahead with her energy suicide plan anyway.
We have lamented, on many occasions, that New York State (our beloved home state) has simply gone to Hades. The state is now run by left-wing radicals. When you cross the border into NY, you are entering The Twilight Zone (a pun and nod to the talented Rod Serling, who was born and grew up in Binghamton, NY). Case in point: A radical member of the NY Senate, along with a member of the NY Assembly, have teamed up to introduce a truly frightening bill. Senate Bill S9612, introduced by the wacky Sen. Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat, would allow anyone to sue oil and gas companies claiming damage from mythical (and unproven) “climate change.”
Last September, the New York Public Service Commission (PSC), which oversees and regulates public utilities, approved the takeover of the Fortistar gas-fired power plant in North Tonawanda, NY, a town close to Niagara Falls, by Canadian crypto mining company Digihost. In December, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) offered its blessing too. All of which prompted the radicals of Earthjustice, representing two other disgusting radical groups–the Sierra Club and Clean Air Coalition of Western New York–to sue (see 
Kinder Morgan issued its fourth quarter 2022 update yesterday. Among the news updates, we learned that work on two of three compressor station projects along the Tennessee Gas Pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey (near New York City) is now underway. There was also some big news about top management shuffles. CEO Steve Kean is retiring, setting off a game of musical chairs (or musical ladders) with existing employees moving up the ladder at the company.
The policies of politicians like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul have real-world consequences. Even if those policies never actually get implemented. Last week, the intellectually-challenged Hochul proposed banning the sale of all new natural gas appliances across the state, and indeed ban hooking up new homes and businesses to gas, by 2030 (see 
The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) hosted a public presentation titled “Water Resource and Environmental Considerations with Shale Gas Development in the Appalachian Basin” last week at the Upper Delaware Council office in Narrowsburg, NY. The program was delivered virtually by Dr. David Yoxtheimer, Ph.D., P.G., assistant research professor and Extension associate with the Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research at Penn State University. Yoxtheimer did a great job of laying out the facts of Marcellus drilling–both the good and the not-so-good, with an eye on how to mitigate the risks.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is proposing to make New York the first state in the U.S. to ban natural gas heating and appliances in new buildings as a way to fight mythical man-made global warming. During her state-of-the-state address on Tuesday, Hochul proposed to ban the use of fossil fuels for heating and appliances (stoves) in homes by 2025, and a ban for businesses and larger structures (like apartment buildings) by 2028. New York would also prohibit the sale of any new fossil-fuel heating systems starting in 2030. Yes, she has certifiably lost her mind.
You may want to consider moving out of New York State if you still live here. The state has collectively lost its mind. NY political leaders are so consumed with hatred of fossil fuels they are about to force its residents to pay an average of $28,000 to convert their homes away from heating and cooking with natural gas, propane, and fuel oil (see 
Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA), a trade group representing some of the biggest consumers of energy in the U.S. (i.e., manufacturers), wrote a letter to the governors of 12 states along the Eastern Seaboard asking those governors to prioritize natural gas pipelines in their respective states (full copy of the letter below). Recipients included Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and (falling on deaf ears) New York and New Jersey. According to the letter, manufacturing companies along the East Coast face growing natural gas scarcity due to the lack of interstate natural gas pipeline capacity.
Most New Yorkers are clueless about a law passed in 2019 called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (or “Climate Act”), which limits carbon dioxide emissions to zero (an impossibility) by 2050 (see 
In April, the New York State Assembly passed Assembly Bill A7389C. In June, the New York State Senate passed the same bill, sending it to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk for a signature (see