Six Dollars a Gallon for Gas Could Become the Norm for New Yorkers, Thanks to Democrats’ Green Energy Policies

New Yorkers could soon be paying $6 a gallon for gas, thanks to Albany’s policy mistakes. The prospect of soaring gas prices comes amid a larger rise in energy costs, accelerated by the growth in data centers and the Iran conflict. Yet $4 -a-gallon gas could soon prove a pleasant memory across the Empire State unless the Democrats correct their misguided green energy policies.As things stand, these policies are pushing the state toward an economic and energy disaster. Governor Andrew Cuomo’s green energy law, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, passed in 2019 at 2 a.m. on the last day of the legislative session, subjected New York to draconian regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. This was done deliberately, without regard to how much it was going to cost New Yorkers, and whether it was even possible.To comply with these self-imposed constraints, Albany is planning to impose a “Cap-and-Invest” scheme, which could result in $2.26 per gallon tax, which — on top of the usual average $3.50 a gallon price — could push gas to nearly $6 a gallon. New York would end up like California, where high taxes and special requirements drive gas prices to astronomical levels.Albany Democrats, too, are pushing to force New Yorkers to heat their homes with electricity, rather than natural gas, propane, oil or whatever source they are using today. Homeowners will have to buy a heat pump or some other device which could cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars (especially if the house requires additional insulation and other upgrades to function properly with the heat pump). This could translate into additional $500 or more in monthly expenses.A measure enacted in 2019 at New York City, Local Law 97, requires apartment buildings to reduce greenhouse emissions or face fines. The owners will have to spend tens of thousands of dollars per apartment to comply with these regulations. Consequently, estimates show maintenance fees for one-bedroom apartment going up by $1,100 per month.Albany’s order to switch all of the state’s 45,000 school buses to electric models is another expensive policy error. At $400,000 each it is $18 billion or roughly $7,500 per student, on top of the highest-in-the-world $36,000 New York spends per student each year. Knowing all these problems, on March 24, New York legislators still voted to keep the electric school bus mandate.To complicate things further, Albany also makes production of electricity in New York unnecessarily difficult. It promotes electricity production from wind and solar, while pushing regular power plants out. As a result, New York households are paying $0.28 per kilowatt hour for electricity, sixth-highest in the nation and 62 percent higher than the nationwide average.At the same time New York’s electricity is produced in increasingly old power plants, some of them more than 50 years old. On the day Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor, New York was close to a blackout.Even more absurdly, all this sacrifice imposed on New Yorkers to meet its own green energy laws’ restrictions and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent will not have any measurable effect if the rest of the world does not do the same. Even if New Yorkers paid $6 for gas, spent tens of thousands of dollars to heat their homes with electricity, the 40 percent of carbon emissions reduction is equal to two days of Communist China’s emissions. What New Yorkers achieved in a year, China will undo on a weekend.Democrats have painted New York into a proverbial corner with the 2019 energy law. Continuing down the path set seven years ago means high energy prices and real pain to households, businesses, and taxpayers.Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposal to address these problems is a very small step in the right direction.Unfortunately, many legislators on the left think that the climate law is perfect, infallible, and cannot be changed.Here is a simple test for the upcoming electoral season. When your local politician tells you how much he or she is outraged by high energy prices, ask him what they are doing to change the state’s green energy law. When they tell you that $4 gas is highway robbery, ask them why they voted for $6 gas.

Six Dollars a Gallon for Gas Could Become the Norm for New Yorkers, Thanks to Democrats’ Green Energy Policies

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