BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

The State Climate Action Plan will ban non-electric appliances and furnaces in newly constructed homes by 2025.

By 2035 the plan would ban homeowners from installing or replacing failed natural gas, fuel-oil or propane furnaces and appliances with anything other than electric alternatives.

Recent efforts by New York State have been praised by environmental advocates as it plans to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050.

The plan is not without resistance. 

St. Lawrence County legislators have raised concerns about the impact it would have here, where fuel oil, wood, propane and natural gas are used by the vast majority of residents.

Also raising concerns are the North Country’s State Republican representatives. Sen. Dan Stec, Assemblyman Scott Gray and Sen. Mark Waclzyk have all expressed concerns about the expense and the timeline for implementation.

Recently, a video posted by New York State Sen. Mark Walczyk, in which he raises questions about the proposal, has been viewed more than 1 million times on Instagram.

The take away from the exchange between the senator and Robert Howarth, a Cornell University professor who serves on the council, is that gas grills will still be allowed, but the days of heating and cooking with propane inside New York homes are numbered.

Walczyk said normally his posts garner a few thousand views, but says this one “blew up” because he asked the right question at the right time.

“The video shows that the Climate Action Council’s plan is to ban all fossil fuels from your home and to do it in a short time frame,” he said.

Walczyk said he and others who have raised concerns about New York’s accelerated move toward “zero emissions” are not against the goal. However, he says New York is doing too much too fast. He noted that in his early days as an Assemblyman he was among the few Republicans to receive a “good” approval rating from environmental groups. 

“There will be a time, probably when everything will move in that direction, but New York is looking to jump that timeline by a number of decades. They are doing it for political reasons and the costs be damned,” he said.

Supporters like Gov. Kathy Hochul and environmental advocates argue that the benefits socially and economically outweigh the costs.

But Walczyk says New York’s efforts won’t do much to impact the global energy or climate problems, but will likely add to the continued exile of employers and innovators from the state to set up operations with weaker environmental regulations.

He says New York lawmakers have delegated their responsibility to a group of people who were not elected to office.

“You could say we ignored our own responsibility and handed it over to the Climate Action Council,” he said.

Walczyk said the committee largely consists of political appointees rather than lawmakers.

“Their plan is to aggressively get rid of fossil fuels and make sure people don’t have access to them,” he said. “I’m not exaggerating when I say that.”

Walczyk says while the goals may have merit in a more long-term look, New York State is ignoring realities associated with implementing their goals. Such as cost to taxpayers, the infrastructure needed to handle the shift to electric and the impact it will have on communities and businesses.

“All of those concerns aren’t going to be a surprise, but they don’t seem to be part of the discussion,” he said.

Walczyk says letting capitalism handle the transition to electric, rather than forcing it on the public, would be a more feasible way to move toward reduced emissions.

“TESLA isn’t successful because of giant government subsidies, they see where things are going and are investing in that technology,” he said.

He said incentivizing efforts toward renewable energies rather than banning fossil fuels would be a better approach.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has signaled an interest in taking costs into consideration moving forward, but what changes we might see remain unclear at this time. 

What’s clear is that electric costs will increase, by how much is a guessing game, according to a recent article from Politico.com that delves deeper into the issue. 

That can be read at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/20/new-york-utilities-costs-00086572