New York, state and city both, have gone all-in on climate scoldery and "green" energy. We've known this for some time, and for some time I've been saying and writing that this will make New Yorkers' utility costs skyrocket, along with the cost of everything else. Everything in any economy, after all, is dependent on energy cost; cheap, reliable energy is good for the economy, while expensive, unreliable energy is bad for the economy. Anyone with enough brains to pound sand knows this, and I'll let you work out for yourselves what that says about New York state and New York City's elected officials.
Now, as it happens, in the Bronx stands one of the city's largest co-op apartment complexes, rather unimaginatively named Co-Op City. This complex has its own dedicated, efficient fossil-fuel power plant, and residents of Co-Op City's utility bills average under a thousand dollars a month. That seems like it's pretty high, but life in New York City, as I understand it, is expensive. Now, though, city and state "green" energy mandates may be about to jack up these residents' utility bills fourfold — or more.
A top Co-Op City official warned that residents could pay four times more in monthly maintenance charges if New York State’s controversial green-energy laws aren’t peeled back.
Jeffrey Buss, Co-Op City’s general counsel, claimed monthly maintenance fees could skyrocket from $950 for a one-bedroom to more than $4,000 to pick up the tab for the edicts.
Some 50,000 working and middle class residents of The Bronx complex, which is America’s largest residential cooperative, could see their affordable digs become unaffordable if the co-ops are forced to dish out as much as $1 billion to rewire buildings and revamp infrastructure, he said.
That's for a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx. This isn't Manhattan. It's not Hudson Yards or SoHo. It's an apartment complex in the Bronx, built as affordable housing, and it's already got a dedicated natural gas power plant that even produces surplus to the complex's needs:
Co-Op City, developed in the 1960s under a state affordable housing initiative, has an on-site power plant fueled by natural gas that helps supply electricity, heat, hot water and air conditioning to the development’s 15,372 residential units across 35 high-rise buildings and seven townhouse clusters through 26 miles of pipes.
That’s all included in the co-ops’ monthly maintenance fees, but if the buildings have to shift to other sources the complex may have to pay for energy costs “at a price which would exceed existing costs by nearly 500% per year,” he said.
Its power plant is so efficient that the Riverbay Corporation, Co-op City’s corporate entity, sells its surplus gas to Con Edison.
“It’s a genius system. We’re highly efficient from an energy standpoint,” Buss said.
It's a genius system that the non-geniuses in Albany and Gracie Mansion want to take down and replace with a non-genius system that will require not only shutting down the natural gas plant, but completely revamping and rewiring the complex for electric heat. And then, the residents will be on the hook for a much higher utility bill. What part of that is "genius?"
Read More: NIMBY 1, Mamdani 0: The Base That Cheered Him Now Sues Him
One of my favorite climate commentators, Francis Menton, writes this over at the Manhattan Contrarian:
Back in January, a group of businesses and trade associations calling itself the Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy submitted a Petition to the Public Service Commission asking it to hold a hearing on whether the deadlines of the State’s Climate Act, currently set to start to bite in 2030, should be extended. (To view the Petition, go to item 63 under “Filed Documents” at this PSC docket.). The PSC then opened a public comment process as to that Petition, which process is ongoing.
Over the past few weeks the comment process has cranked up, and large numbers of comments have flooded in. You may or may not be surprised to learn that hundreds of these comments are identical, or nearly so. (To view the comments, go to the same PSC link above and click the “Public Comments” tab.). The comments apparently have been rounded up by environmental activist groups that have asked their members and donors to sign and submit form responses.
You can view that petition here.
Now, never let it be said that the "green" energy shouters aren't well-organized. They are. And in this petition, well, the comments sure look a lot like an organized, astroturf effort to put a massive thumb on the scale of the argument, and one would be justified in betting the ranch that few, if any, of those pro-green commenters live in Co-Op City. That's a hallmark of the left, in that they rarely care about the people who are affected by their stupid policies.
And this, right here, boy, this is stupidity on steroids. New York Democrats seem more and more to be like the Energizer Bunny on crack; they just keep getting dumber, and dumber, and dumber. State and local laws and regulations championed by these people are hurting what's left of New York's working and middle class, and the more these people are hurt, the more they will start to look to the exits.
But put yourself in the shoes of a Co-Op City resident right now. Some of these people have no doubt lived in the complex for many years. Co-Op City is their home, and while I wouldn't care to live in a beehive like this, many people do like that life, and they are entitled to have it, without climate scolds and green energy advocates quadrupling their utility bills.
The left, however, doesn't seem too concerned. There's an obvious answer to all this for New Yorkers, of course, and in the next few election cycles, they have their obvious choice to make. Let's see if a majority of New Yorkers can work that out.
