Living in upstate New York, I've grown used to seeing the alarmed alerts showing up on community social media outlets over the past few years when people open up their monthly utility bills, only to be hit with sticker shock after another rate hike takes effect. This has traditionally happened periodically over the years, but such increases tended to at least be spaced out a bit and the bites didn't seem to be nearly as large. Now the situation is getting ridiculous. It's even worse for our friends in New York City. Any customers of National Grid who aren't independently wealthy can tell you about it. If you ask the energy giant, they freely admit that the state's "Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act" passed in 2019 is one of the largest drivers. And it's about to get worse. A lot worse. The utility giant just requested another rate increase for the upstate region that will cause electric and gas prices to increase by 15 and 20 percent. As a bonus, they are warning that there still isn't enough energy on the grid and there will probably be blackouts coming this summer, so don't get too comfortable running those air conditioners. (NY Post) 

Utility giant National Grid’s request for whopping double-digit electric and gas rate hikes upstate is another reminder of the grim impact of the state’s “transformative” Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, pushed into law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019.

This latest round — the highest increases the utility has proposed in some 35 years — comes atop warnings of looming blackouts this summer.

Last May, National Grid proposed a hefty 17% hike for Big Apple customers while blaming the state’s climate targets and inflation. While regulators ponder that ask, the utility now seeks to up upstate electric and gas prices, 15% and 20%, respectively.

In all, National Grid and the state’s other utilities last year sought over a billion dollars in rate hikes to fund state-mandated “climate” upgrades.

Costs aren't rising this quickly because it costs so much more to produce power. It doesn't. Those prices have remained fairly stable across most regions. The utilities are having to install and revise an increasingly costly series of "climate protection upgrades" into the system. Portions of the system that utilize natural gas constantly have to be ripped out and replaced with electrical units. New condensers and filtering systems must be installed and then upgraded. All of that costs money, and you can rest assured it isn't coming out of National Grid's bottom line.

At the same time, the 2019 law mandates that New York must get 70% of its power from renewable energy by 2030. That figure skyrockets to 100% by 2040. What the government truly hates to admit is that all of the "renewable" energy they are able to generate costs more to put on the grid than the traditional oil and natural gas plants we relied on for generations. Just for the record, the state's energy commission admits that despite all of these efforts, we aren't even close to hitting that 70% goal at this point and we aren't likely to make the target. Meanwhile, all of the energy they do manage to put on the grid costs more.

And how about those blackouts? Those were never a thing when I was growing up or even as recently as a decade ago. Prices would go up from time to time, but there was always plenty of electricity on the grid. But not anymore. During periods of peak demand, they are hitting the wall in terms of how much juice they can produce in "climate-friendly" ways. So not only will you be paying 15 to 20 percent more for your electricity, it may not be available when you really need it the most. Even the utility company isn't trying to deny any of this.

These are real-world impacts being felt by people across the state and much of the rest of the nation as well. In the midst of the damage being caused by "Bidenomics" when everything else already costs too much, they will drive up people's utility bills by a very significant margin because of nothing but completely avoidable government mandates intended to appease the Climate Goddess. This is something that people voted for. This was a choice made by New York's Democrats. That means that it's reversible if the will exists to make that happen. We're not running out of energy. We're drowning in oil and we have enough natural gas and coal in the ground to power this country well into the next century. What we're running out of is sanity and common sense. Vote these clowns out and reverse these policies or escape from New York while you're still able to afford a U-Haul truck to get your stuff out of town. Just be aware that the same thing is happening in other blue states, if not as quickly as it is in Gotham. Choose your destination wisely.