Man. In case New Yorkers needed any more cheerful news besides crime rates, taxes and the nails-on-a-blackboard voice of the creature they actually elected governor, there’s more fun in the pipeline. Sometime this month Kathy Hochul is going to get a piece of legislation that has the potential to make the next big Buffalo blow look like a sequel to Snowpiercer.

NY state is going all-electric.

NY’s 22 member Climate Action Council (that should be enough to send chills down a sane person’s spine) has been collecting “public comment” on the long-awaited scoping document they released a year ago. The gist of which is pretty radical in itself.

…New York’s 22-member Climate Action Council has released its long-awaited blueprint for how the state can achieve the requirements of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or CLCPA.

The CLCPA mandates that New York reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) statewide by 40% by 2030. By the same year, the law mandates that 70% of all electricity generated in New York be renewable.

…“A third of the greenhouse gas emissions in the state are coming from heating our homes and our buildings,” Howarth explained. “So we need to move away from fossil fuels and we need to do so aggressively. We need to take up beneficial electrification.”

What Howarth is talking about is replacing the fossil fuels many use to heat their homes with either heat pumps or electricity powered by renewables.

The CAC’s implementation plan calls for eliminating the use of fossil fuels, including natural gas, oil and propane in any new home construction by 2025. For multi-family homes and commercial buildings, fossil fuels would be prohibited by 2030.

The plan also calls for an ambitious retrofitting of existing homes.

“We’ve got 6 million homes in this state that need to be retrofitted, so that’s a challenge,” Howarth said.

Check out the New World Order language: beneficial electrification. Gack. Like the “beneficial euthanasia” in Canada for pesky and expensive medical patients, the only one benefitting from any of it is the state itself. I hope people caught on.

After a year’s worth of – hopefully flaming hot – input from citizens, businesses, and industry, the Action Council presented its finished product. It looks remarkably like the draft they circulated, only is chock full of more pie-in-the-sky renewable Greeneries and Social Justice argle-bargle.

How’s this for a section on keeping the lights burning?

SECURING CLIMATE JUSTICE

The Scoping Plan also prioritizes work led by the CJWG and puts forth comprehensive actions to address climate justice and ensure that the State’s transition to a low-carbon, clean energy economy addresses health, environmental, and energy burdens that disproportionately impact Disadvantaged Communities Link opens in new window – close new window to return to this page.. The Climate Act requires Disadvantaged Communities receive a minimum of 35 percent, with a goal of 40 percent, of benefits of investments in clean energy and energy efficiency programs or projects in the areas of housing, workforce development, pollution reduction, low- and moderate-income energy assistance, energy, transportation, and economic development.

Identified benefits and impacts to Disadvantaged Communities are included throughout the Scoping Plan with recommended greenhouse gas and co-pollutant emissions reduction strategies designed to deliver concrete benefits to individuals in Disadvantaged Communities, such as:

• Addressing energy affordability concerns and reducing energy burden;
• Reducing environmental burden from greenhouse gas emissions and co-pollutants;
• Ensuring full participation in the new clean economy and corresponding job growth, including through access to good quality jobs and union-based employment opportunities;
• Ensuring access to New York State’s significant and growing policies and programs that invest in clean local resources, like solar and energy efficiency; and
• Ensuring an inclusive process and full participation by Disadvantaged Communities and their representatives in the ongoing work of developing and implementing climate action policies and programs.

If I read this correctly, almost half of the monies/benefits/however they frame it are already earmarked for “disadvantaged” communities, within a myriad of areas. No possible way any of those funds could be misspent, grafted out, or just plain go missing, right? Perish the thought.

Then there’s this section, which claims to watch out for those who are going to be summarily unemployed thanks to this new wonderful wave of Greenery enveloping the state.

“Learn to code” has become?

ENSURING A JUST TRANSITION

A critical component of New York’s Climate Act is ensuring that the advancement of a low-carbon and clean energy economy results in new economic development opportunities throughout the State and supports long-term careers in jobs across all sectors, while simultaneously providing support and tools to the workers and communities who may be affected by the unfolding energy transition.

What an empowering slogan. You can wear it on your t-shirt as you file for unemployment in the cold.

It should be in the legislature’s hands this month.

New York’s landmark climate law cleared another hurdle Monday with a final plan to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century.

…The plan, passed 19-3 by the Climate Action Council, is expected to be sent to Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature by the new year.

Speaking of which, Hochul was pleased as punch yesterday to announce “her plan” during her State of the State address. Buy blankets and candles.

New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, during her state of the state address Monday, announced plans to ban gas heating on the construction of new buildings over the next several years.

…”I’m proposing a plan to end the sale of new fossil powered heating equipment by 2030 by calling for construction of – all new construction needs to be zero emission – starting in 2025 for small buildings and 2028 for large buildings,” Hochul said. “And we’re taking these steps now because climate change remains the greatest threat to our planet but also to our children and our grandchildren.”

…Hochul’s proposal will create the Energy Affordability Guarantee to ensure participating New Yorkers never pay more than 6% of their incomes on electricity. She announced $200 million in relief for utility bills for up to 800,000 New York households earning under $75,000 a year that are not currently eligible for the state’s utility discount program.

The NY Green Action heroes and Hochul are financing a good portion of this on the backs of U.S. taxpayers, thanks to Biden (and Joe Manchin, never forget). The numbers are eye-watering…

…The plan recommends a “cap-and-invest program” akin to California’s cap-and-trade program. The policy would put a “cap” on total permitted emissions units, known as allowances. Polluting companies would then buy and sell a declining set of allowances — the “invest” — creating economic incentives for polluters to reduce emissions over time.

The plan also calls for billions of investments in reshaping buildings’ energy efficiency, which currently account for about a third of the state’s emissions, the highest of any sector. Between one and two million homes should transition to electric heat pumps by 2030, the report outlines.

…and at least one of the 3 dissenting votes on a committee chock-full of environmental Nazis had the courage to say the math is wrong.

…Opponents of the plan worried about the transition away from fossil fuels that currently supply the bulk of the electric grid’s power. It’s also unclear how much the plan would cost individual New Yorkers.

“The scoping plan doesn’t go far enough to ensure a responsible energy future for New York consumers,” said Donna DeCarolis, president of the Western New York-based National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation, one of three dissenting votes.

In her remarks, DeCarolis cited four reasons for dissenting: a lack of energy grid reliability for consumers; relying too heavily on electrification as a single form of energy prone to disruption by severe weather; consumer energy affordability; and the need to use existing natural gas systems, especially upstate with colder temperatures that require more heating.

While saying the 2030 goal for a 70% reduction in emissions is reachable, Gavin Donohue, president and CEO of the Independent Power Producers of New York, said the goal for 2040 — to achieve 100% zero-emissions electric — is “complete magic.”

Ms DeCarolis’ common sense warning was immediately countered by a classic Green crusader from the Council.

…Council member Raya Salter, a New Rochelle attorney who founded the Energy Justice Law and Policy Center, warned against “false solutions” such as nuclear and natural gas.

If Greens don’t like it, even though it’s safe, reliable, clean and keeps you warm with the lights on, it’s FALSE. That’s their fallback.

As if to emphasize the “unclear how much the plan would cost New Yorkers” point even more, take a gander at the Action Council’s own webpage. It’s part and parcel of the NY governor’s website. Even has its own navigation for questions and a cheerful, accessible presentation.

Isn’t that cozy?

Right up to where you hit the button for “affordability” under the “Our Impact” drop down. Oddly enough, they have no answers there, either.

I thought that was hilarious. So, SO telling.

Haven’t there been enough rolling disasters for years already in California for them to take a time out? Europe’s crisis means nothing?

The fact that the Carolinas had their first winter blackouts EVER this year, because why? North Carolina’s state-mandated clean energy plan, and the huge population shift combined with the electrification of home heating. That not one soul planned in advance to add capacity to the grid for.

They are making the exact same mistake here. Nowhere in the mumbo jumbo about justice and diversity is a peep about expanded capacity to handle the tremendous additional demands all this new beneficial electrification is going to gobble up. Especially when solar panels are covered in 4 feet of snow and the wind isn’t blowing.

Here goes New York, plunging merrily into the heat pump abyss – in a state where it gets cold, and they get snow measured in feet. All winter long.

Livin’ it up at the Hotel Yorkifornia.

What a nice surprise.

Now keep scraping ice.