Let Governor Cuomo and the Public Service Commission Know We Expect them to Serve the Public’s Interest and Protect the Planet
PSC Meeting, Thursday, January 16th
As the climate emergency heats up worldwide, the NYS Public Service Commission will decide whether to approve the Joint Proposal for the Con Ed rate case. The Joint Proposal not only raises how much customers will pay for electricity and gas, it also will spend some of that money on outrageous expansions of gas infrastructure!
-Con Ed makes money for its investors by charging customers (via the rates we pay) to build capital projects — like pipelines. Con Ed wants to save their business model by locking us into decades more of fracked gas use at a time when climate science says we need to be getting off all fossil fuels.
-Con Ed wants to spend hundreds of millions of ratepayer dollars to expand pipelines in the Bronx/Westchester, Queens and Manhattan. They also want to spend nearly $65 million ratepayer dollars to “modernize” an LNG facility in Astoria Queens.
-We say not a single dollar should be spent on fracked gas infrastructure that will contribute to climate change and will soon become stranded assets that we the ratepayers will be stuck paying for. This is not a wise investment of our money. We should not be made to fund our destruction.
-Instead of spending over a billion dollars of ratepayer money to expand and extend the life of fracked gas infrastructure, Con Ed should be working to reduce gas demand through energy efficiency, conservation, beneficial electrification, and retiring the old pipelines and replacing them with renewable heating systems, like ground source (geothermal) and air source heat pumps.
Gather to watch and hold signs at 9:30am, Thursday, January 16, 2020
Public Service Commission Meeting (starts at 10:30am)
Empire State Plaza
Agency Building 3
19th Floor Boardroom
Albany, NY
Press conference hosted by Renewable Heat Now at 1:30pm in the LCA Pressroom: Legislative Office Building (LOB) Room 130.
The world is watching what New York will do. The time to act is NOW. Let’s make sure NYS regulators and Governor Cuomo know we are watching them and that we hold them accountable for serving the PUBLIC’s interest and protecting the planet – not protecting the utilities’ bottom line.
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