January 16, 2021
Editorials, New York

Andrew Cuomo’s poisonous green dreams

By Post Editorial Board | New York Post | January 15, 2021 | nypost.com

Despite declaring that the state’s economy is in a recession, Gov. Cuomo this week still announced a new $26 billion clean-energy plan that’s guaranteed to make it that much harder to get good times rolling again.

“We must replace fossil-fuel plants with clean power. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it, and now is the time to do it,” Cuomo said. Actually, the time to do it is after alternatives become less than insanely expensive. New York’s energy costs are already among the highest in the nation, and this will only make it worse.

Like everyone pitching green investment, Cuomo says it will create thousands of jobs and activate tens of billions in private investment. But the only real certainty is that it will cost, big-time – and employ hundreds of construction workers at pay rates they can’t actually get on the open market.

The gov sunk hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into that solar-cell plant up in Buffalo, which is now valued at around $75 million. Does he think you get “clean energy” by burning money?

Cuomo’s green-energy wish list includes:

• Creating a $20 million Offshore Wind Training Institute at SUNY Stony Brook and Farmingdale State College to train and certify workers for the new energy jobs

• Building an offshore-wind plant in the Port of Albany

• Starting almost 100 onshore-wind farms, offshore-wind farms and solar farms

• Building new transmission lines to bring power from upstate to New York City – and from upstate Massena to Orange County

• Creating an offshore-wind-turbine-manufacturing hub at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.

The only thing missing from the gov’s remarks on Wednesday was telling taxpayers where he’ll get the tens of billions of dollars to pay for it all, even as he also insisted, “you need to bring spending into line.”

His main answer seems to be: more borrowing, as he said the state should take advantage of historically low interest rates. You’re not supposed to think about how state-supported debt has already soared to perilous levels.

Meanwhile, Cuomo’s anti-fracking and anti-nuclear policies have deprived New Yorkers of plentiful and cheap sources of power. Fracking for national gas in the state’s economically depressed Southern Tier and elsewhere has been banned since 2014. All the new power sources he’s talking up won’t replace the Indian Point nuclear plants he bullied into closing.

In short, Cuomo’s green dreams mean nightmares for New York’s future.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2021/01/16/andrew-cuomos-poisonous-green-dreams/

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