New York needs 15 GW of publicly owned power. This is how we get it.

I need a favor, folks.

No, I'm not asking for money—unless you believe that time is money, in which case I'm asking for about 75¢ of your time.

I need you to submit a comment demanding that the New York Power Authority (NYPA) commits to building 15 gigawatts of publicly owned renewable energy projects in New York State as soon as humanly possible.

You don't need to be a New Yorker to comment. Just an advocate for building public power in the greatest city in the world.

Quick backstory

NYPA recently announced they plan to build 7 gigawatts of renewable energy projects in New York State. This actually represents a major improvement over the frankly measly 3 GW they originally claimed was the most they could possibly build.

Unfortunately, 7 GW still ain't gonna cut it. New York needs a minimum of 15 GW to keep our energy bills earthbound and to avert a disastrous future of constant blackouts, avoidable heat deaths, cannibalistic gangs roaming Manhattan, etc etc.

We know NYPA can do it. After all, they just doubled their previous commitment overnight. Surely they can double it again! But to make that happen, we need to keep the pressure on.

That's where you come in.

For the next few weeks, NYPA is accepting public comments on their revised 7 GW proposal. Last time they accepted comments, we sent in over 5,300 public comments. NYPA has cited that 5,300 number in all of their recent press releases as a major reason why they doubled their plan.

Now it's on all of us to let NYPA know that 7 GW simply isn't enough. New Yorkers need 15 GW—minimum! Likely much more!—and we need it today.

How to leave a comment

To leave a comment, all you need do is click the green button below and follow the directions on the website. There's a pre-written comment template for you to copy/paste, so don't worry about finding the right words. But if you want to add a personal touch, it never hurts to put a little funk on it.

Thank you for doing this! Please help us spread the word by sharing this post or writing your own. We've gotta beat our 5,300 comment total from last time if we want to show NYPA and Governor Hochul we mean business.

Now, if you're wondering what the heck this is all about... keep reading.

The most progressive climate bill in the country

So a couple years ago, in 2023, New York passed arguably the most progressive climate bill in the country.

Called the Build Public Renewables Act, or the BPRA, the bill obliges NYPA to plan, build, and operate publicly owned renewable energy projects—as many as we need to achieve New York's state-mandated climate goals of being 70% clean energy-powered by 2030 and 100% clean energy-powered by 2040.

This didn't just happen on its own. The BPRA passed after four long years of nonstop organizing by local climate and labor groups. One group in particular led the way: the Ecosocialist Working Group of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. [Disclaimer: Jon is a proud member of this highly bureaucratic organization].

What makes the BPRA so special is that does way more than just require NYPA to build. It was written by socialists, folks. You know they're gonna pack a bunch of good stuff in there.

For instance, the BPRA includes "the strongest labor and just transition language that energy unions have ever seen", according to the AFL-CIO. The BPRA is estimated to create between 28,000 and 51,000 jobs, most of them union jobs, and all of them fairly compensated.

(If you haven't heard the phrase 'just transition' before, it's the principle that nobody should be left behind as we transition away from fossil fuels to a decarbonized world. That includes folks who today work in the trades for oil and gas fossil fuel companies.)

The BPRA also mandates that NYPA shut down the seven methane gas 'peaker' plants they operate in NYC by 2030. These peaker plants are nasty, nasty things. Originally intended to run only once or twice a year during our most intense periods of energy demand, peakers are in fact run regularly. You'll be shocked to learn that NYC's peakers are mostly located in black and brown neighborhoods where they spew noxious pollutants into the air on the hottest days of the year (when the air quality is already terrible). Communities in the Bronx and Queens that house peaker plants report asthma rates up to 3x higher than the rest of the city. Globally, air pollution is responsible for some ~7 million premature deaths every year.

The BPRA goes even further, but I don't want to get too into the weeds. If you're keen, you can read the full bill text here.

So, yeah! Awesome bill, right? Like I said, the BPRA became the law of the land in 2023... yet here we are, two years later, without a plan for adequate power and with none of those gas peaker plants shuttered.

One might take a look at the situation and surmise that the New York Power Authority is slow-walking their legally mandated obligations.

But why would they do that?

In the beginning, a vision of public power

To answer that question, we need to start at the beginning. NYPA was created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt—yes, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt—way back in 1931, when the future President was merely the Governor of New York. He did good: to this day, NYPA remains the largest publicly owned electric utility in America.

Franky D. was crystal clear about why he created NYPA: he wanted a counterweight to the privately owned, for-profit utility companies that were price-gouging customers even back then. FDR charged NYPA with building and operating massive hydropower plants on the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York. The hydro plants would produce and sell renewable electricity to New Yorkers at cost, giving them a price benchmark against the other utilities.

In FDR's words, he wanted "to give back to the people the waterpower which is theirs."

Though development was delayed for years, eventually the St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power Project and the Niagara Power Project came online and promptly began producing bountiful clean, low-cost electricity. Today, hydropower from upstate still accounts for over 20% of New York's overall energy generation.

(An aside: while researching, I stumbled upon this 1928 quote from FDR. It hasn't aged a day.)

That progressive government by its very terms must be a living and growing thing, that the battle for it is never-ending and that if we let up for one single moment or one single year, not merely do we stand still but we fall back in the march of civilization.

Well put, Franky D.

Okay, so FDR signs the Power Authority Act into law on April 27, 1931, establishing what would soon become the New York Power Authority. The newly minted agency was instructed to plan, build, and operate big renewable energy projects in upstate New York.

...so what the hell happened? Why'd we need to pass a bill in 2023 forcing NYPA to do the very thing they were founded to do?

The answer may not surprise you.

Rich people complained a lot

NYPA was effectively barred from constructing renewable energy projects during a period of intense market deregulation that occurred throughout the 1990s.

Y'know, that time everybody thought it'd be a good idea to let for-profit businesses do whatever the fuck they want without any consequence?

The shift away from public investment was justified by the obviously flawed premise that handing energy projects over to for-profit companies would somehow lower prices for customers. These emerging companies, broadly known as Independent Power Producers, had lobbied the legislature for years to enable this exact outcome.

Stripped of its ability to build new generation, NYPA was relegated to managing their existing hydropower and gas plants, electric transmission lines, and the state's canal system.

So, you can probably imagine the response from NYPA to the introduction of the Build Public Renewables Act in 2023, with its grand plan to restore NYPA to its former glory. You'd better believe the folks at NYPA were stoked to start building public power again!

...right?

The President and CEO of NYPA is a Republican

Oh.

NYPA and its then-interim, now official President and CEO, Justin Driscoll, is a confirmed Republican. You know, just like President Trump.

Driscoll was appointed to his position by none other than Governor Kathy Hochul herself. Together, this plucky duo fought tooth and nail against the passage of the BPRA.

But the NYC-DSA Ecosocialists, backed by a coalition of 20 local climate groups called Public Power NY, didn't blink. They kept organizing. The effort got a boost from rank-and-file members of PSC-CUNY, who hosted a series of 10 town halls at campuses around the city that helped drive public engagement.

And the Ecosocialists found an ally in a young New York State Assemblymember by the name of Zohran Mamdani. Zohran went to bat repeatedly for the BPRA, keeping the pressure on Albany alongside many other progressive elected officials.

Driscoll and Hochul realized that killing the bill outright wouldn't be possible, so they pivoted: they introduced a counter-measure. Dubbed 'BPRA Lite', their amended bill was kinda similar to the original bill... except it removed all of the labor provisions, the peaker plant shutdown mandate, and the expansion of NYPA's board of directors to include folks from outside environmental groups.

Classic stuff from our highest ranking electeds.

The 'BPRA Lite' was ultimately rejected, but the final bill was amended to excise that line about expanding NYPA's board.

Thus the bill was passed into law. Kathy Hochul graciously accepted the outcome, and Justin Driscoll changed political parties, and the good folks at NYPA set out to rapidly execute on the explicit mandate of the Build Public Renewables Act!

Right??

NYPA is ignoring their legally mandated deadlines

Ah.

This past May, NYPA missed a legal deadline to produce a report on how exactly they plan to phase out their seven gas peaker plants by 2030.

Ten days after missing the deadline, NYPA put out a memo. It said they need to 'conduct further studies on various outcomes' before they can come up with an actual plan.

Protip: next time you're supposed to do something but you don't want to, just say you need to conduct further studies on various outcomes before taking action. It turns out, if you study stuff forever, you never have to actually do anything!

Needless to say, the Ecosocialists and their allies did not love this turn of events.

But they had another arrow in the quiver: they wrote another bill.

Passing the Public Renewables Transparency Act

This past June, the Ecosocialists and Public Power NY got another amazing bill passed by the New York State Assembly and Senate.

It's called the Public Renewables Transparency Act. True to its name, the bill requires NYPA to lift the veil on their strategic plans and processes. Highlights include:

NYPA must...

• Create a public dashboard showing their progress on building renewables
• Publish three progress reports every year on their public website
• Increase the number of public hearings from three to six
• Establish an independent body to ensure community voices, i.e. labor, environmental justice, and climate experts, have influence over NYPA's policymaking

Pretty slick!

The thing is, this bill hasn't yet been signed into law. It's very close! The PRTA has passed the State Assembly and the Senate, so all it needs now is the stroke of a ballpoint pen from one Governor Kathy Hochul.

Will she sign it? I hope so. It'd be hard for our Governor to credibly claim she cares about climate change if she didn't. I mean, especially after she cut $140 million from an energy efficiency program for low-income people just last month. Oh, and especially after she "caved" to Trump on allowing two brand new gas pipelines to run through New York.

The Governor is up for reelection in 2026, just sayin'.

NYPA is feeling the heat

So if the Transparency Act hasn't passed, why did NYPA all of a sudden reverse course and commit to building 7 GW of renewable energy?

I'm speculating, but I think it's the confluence of three things:

1. Trump is killing the Biden-era federal tax credits that make renewable energy projects much more affordable to build.
2. In response, several states are now planning to build or buy a ton of clean energy ASAP, before the tax credits expire. For instance, Maine is fast-tracking plans to procure nearly 1,600 gigawatt-hours per year of renewable energy. That's about ~13% of their annual energy use.
3. They have to assume the Transparency Act will pass (c'mon, Kathy!!), which would compel NYPA to show their hand. If the public were to learn that NYPA sat idly by while the clean energy tax credits expired, well, that would be a really terrible look for them.

So there you have it.

Pressure makes diamonds... and sometimes it makes solar panels.

If you haven't already, go ahead and leave a public comment telling NYPA to stop messing around and commit to building the 15 gigawatts of publicly owned that New York needs. Like Franky D. said, we cannot let up for a single moment.

P.S. Green Juice is going on vacation! We'll be back in early September. Stay cool, dudes.