GUEST VIEW: HEAT Act would deliver climate action, energy ... - Lockport Union-Sun & Journal

GUEST VIEW: HEAT Act would deliver climate action, energy affordability | Opinion | lockportjournal.com

Climate conversations often get mired in mindless money minutiae — how much will a certain climate policy cost and how will we pay for it — as if it was possible to put a price on civilization. But what if there was an impactful climate policy that didn’t cost a dime and helped relieve energy burdens?

As a matter of fact, there’s one in front of New York state lawmakers right now. It is called the New York Home Energy Affordable Transition or NY HEAT Act – a common-sense energy affordability and fiscal responsibility bill that would lower utility costs through systemic reforms and deserves immediate attention from legislators.

The NY HEAT Act would direct the state’s Public Service Commission to actually act on and implement New York’s goal of limiting the home energy costs of low-to-moderate income households to 6% of their incomes, for whom, this provision of the bill could lead to average monthly savings of $75 or more on utility bills.

The NY HEAT Act, however, does a lot more, and for all gas customers of all incomes. Many New Yorkers are unaware that gas hookups worth thousands of dollars each are given away at no or minimal cost to new customers and existing customers pick the tab. This collectively adds $200 million to New York gas customers’ bills each year. Luring new customers with ratepayer funded free hookups locks them into an expensive and polluting fuel while adding unnecessary gas demand that raises supply prices of this export-constrained commodity for everyone.

Dug up streets for old pipe replacement are more than a traffic nuisance; these also add billions to utility bills. The new pipes laid at the cost of $6 million per mile will be mostly empty in just a few decades, but utility customers would be on the hook to continue paying for them for years after these are retired.

Whether these are service lines for new customers or replaced mains, the utilities love laying new pipes because under the state’s antiquated laws, they relay all the cost to their customers, along with an 8–10% mark-up for a guaranteed return on investment – pure profits earned at the cost of ratepayers and our climate.

The NY HEAT Act has provisions for modernizing New York’s laws governing utility regulations to address each one of these issues.

Not surprisingly, corporations like National Grid and National Fuel Gas would like to see this bill fail so they can continue expanding the gas system at the expense of their customers and our climate. So in order to bully state lawmakers into allowing them to keep extracting exorbitant profits from their ratepayers, National Fuel used information technology infrastructure funded by ratepayers to lobby against the best long-term interests of their ratepayers, likely breaking state law in the process.

The NY HEAT Act would lower energy costs for households with modest means, and will stop law-breaking utilities from exploiting antiquated laws to exploit their existing customers for acquiring profitable new customers through free hookups. If the state lawmakers return home without passing the NY HEAT Act at the end of the legislative session that is winding down in a few weeks, they must explain why they chose freebies for fat-cat gas utilities over rate relief for their constituents who they are sworn to serve?