February 26, 2020 — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to speed up approvals of renewable energy projects is launching the state’s climate ambitions into a new phase that could cause an uproar in rural communities.
The legislation, presented as an amendment to the Democratic governor’s budget on Friday, could be a bellwether for officials in other states looking to fast-track costly and often controversial energy developments to meet their own carbon-cutting goals.
At the heart of the New York bill is a plan to remove wind and solar power from the state’s traditional energy permitting process, developed for natural gas plants and approved by Cuomo almost a decade ago.
Wind and solar projects would no longer face scrutiny from the state’s environmental and utility regulators, instead receiving permits from a new office housed within an economic development agency.
But by trying to pave the way for developers, the governor’s overhaul could incense locals in several rural counties, many of them located near the shores of lakes Erie and Ontario or along the border of Pennsylvania. The bill must still pass both chambers of the Democratic-controlled Legislature.
Last week, county officials near Niagara Falls were considering ways to block vast new wind turbine projects, with one legislator lamenting that the state’s incentives for wind and solar were “destroying our communities,” according to Niagara Frontier Publications.