Heat Act is Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

It’s a time-honored tradition in Albany for advocacy groups to come up with catchy acronyms for legislation. Such is the case with the “NY HEAT” Act, which stands for New York Home Energy Affordable Transition. Last year, when the New Yorkers for Affordable Energy coalition was critical of the bill, our concern was met with the reply, “What are you talking about, I mean, it literally says affordable in the title!” While that may be so, the problem like many things in New York State politics, appearances are not what they seem.

The NY Heat Act is unaffordable for New York families.  The latest version of the bill does NOTHING to directly reduce energy costs, and worse allows unelected Albany bureaucrats even more power and authority to dramatically increase your bill in the future. The bill would also force those folks to pay for the full or partial cost of electrifying their homes. Those changes would cost customers another $20,000- to $50,000!

The bill also looks to eliminate the “100-foot rule” that requires utility companies to connect new homes or businesses to gas service at no cost if they are within 100 feet of the gas main line. These projects must be performed by highly-trained workers who specialize in the safe operation of gas infrastructure. Eliminating the “100 foot” rule will put thousands of these hard-working New Yorkers on the unemployment line and severely impact the ability of these men and women to make a living.

Perhaps the most unsettling part of the bill, is that the NY Heat Act threatens the reliability of our state’s utility system and by extension our ability to simply keep the lights on and heat our homes in upstate New York. In an article published on Syracuse.com on December 2, 2024, Cornell University Professor Lindsay Anderson, laid out this very scenario. Specifically, she stated that, in addition to all of the planned solar and wind projects we are initiating, we will need an enormous 40 gigawatts of baseload power from “some other source”. If you’re wondering how much 40 gigawatts is, it’s roughly equal to the entire capacity of all of the State’s current power plants. The issue that seems to be ignored by the bill’s supporters is that without the existing generating sources like natural gas, there is no other source currently available to fill that gap to fuel our homes and power our businesses. Professor Anderson ran simulations of that scenario in the coldest and hottest months of the year and the results indicated there would be “blackouts that could last a month in some parts of the state.”

In conclusion, the NY Heat Act will increase energy bills, it will put thousands of people out of work, and it will threaten the reliability of the State’s energy grid. We urge the Governor and the Legislature to move on from this failed idea and work together to find concrete ways to lower energy costs, protect high-paying energy jobs, reduce emissions and strengthen grid reliability.