Reckoning Ahead for Democrats Over Soaring Energy Costs

A reckoning is looming for Democrats over the high cost of their ambitions to change the weather. Liberal politicians, it seems, can either turn away from their party’s anti-fossil fuel agenda, or face the wrath of the voters. Governor Kathy Hochul, who is running for re-election, is opting for political survival. She is looking to beat a retreat on New York’s climate law, dating to 2019, calling for the state to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The policy moves launched because of the climate law, which calls for the state to dial back fossil fuel emissions to 60 percent of the 1990 level, have already led the cost of electricity to surge across the state. Yet the state, by its own account, is still nowhere near to meeting its goal. Failing to revise the law’s provisions, the Manhattan Institute’s Ken Girardin cautions, would lead to “steep electric bills, green-energy boondoggles, and rolling blackouts.”Hence Mrs. Hochul’s attempt to bow to reality. “Do you want to give ourselves some breathing room?” she is asking, “or do you want to impose those costs on New Yorkers?” She stresses that the question is “not hypothetical. That’s me following the law.” That’s a reference to the deadlines in the 2019 climate measure, which a state judge in October found that the state is failing to meet. Mrs. Hochul’s lament: “I need time. I need more time.”Whether the governor will be able to make any changes in the law over the objections of her party’s climate militants, though, is not clear. Her earlier attempt, in 2023, to revise the measure failed to make headway at Albany. The chairman of the state senate’s environmental conservation committee, Senator Pete Harckham, is opposed to Mrs. Hochul’s plan to use the state’s annual budget to revise the measure, saying it would “not do justice to the law.”Yet the soaring cost of energy in New York underscores the urgency of Mrs. Hochul’s suggestion. As of December, state households “pay some of the highest electricity prices in the nation,” the nonpartisan Empire Center reports. Residential electricity prices here are 59 percent higher than the national average, the center reports, and the sixth-highest in the country. Natural gas costs 20 percent more in New York than in the rest of the country.Electricity prices here are rising twice as fast as the national average, the center adds. That puts the lie to Mrs. Hochul’s gripes that national trends — and Trump administration policies — are to blame for New York’s high energy costs. She pins the failure to meet the 2019 climate goals on “the pandemic, inflation, lack of support from the federal government — which had been there before when this was all enacted — and tariffs.”In short, the governor wants to shift responsibility for New York’s climate follies on anyone other than the Democrats who enacted the misguided law in 2019. Mrs. Hochul’s attempt to change course “is one of the clearest signs yet that Democrats are recalibrating their climate agenda,” Politico says, “as the party increasingly prioritizes affordability ahead of the midterms.” Yet savvy voters will know which party is to blame for exorbitant energy prices.

Reckoning Ahead for Democrats Over Soaring Energy Costs

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