100% Renewables Now NYS
Update – November 23, 2016
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Mon Dec. 5, 350NYC Forum on Carbon Pricing
Tues. Dec. 6 – NYC – the Fight Against Cuomo’s Nuclear Bailout Continues
Urge Cuomo To Sign Geothermal Legislation
Tues Dec. 20 – Rally for Offshore Wind at LIPA Board Meeting
Court Rules Against Indian Point in Water Review Dispute
Mayors Urge Trump to Support Climate Action
Groups’ Efforts to Strengthen RGGI falling short
Marrakech climate talks show there is no turning back on clean energy transition
Subsidy for Dunkirk Coal Power Plant Gets New Life
Mon Dec. 5, 350NYC Forum on Carbon Pricing
350NYC is hosting a forum on a carbon tax on Monday, December 5th @ 6:30 pm at
New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th St. NYC. Join us for this educational forum on a wide range of issues related to putting a price on carbon: What are the scientific, economic and ethical arguments in favor of a carbon tax?; What are the practical and political barriers to implementation?; How should climate activists in NYC organize around these challenges?
Speakers will be: Dr. James Hansen, Director, Climate Science Awareness and Solutions Program at Columbia University Earth Institute; Charles Komanoff, Director, Carbon Tax Center; Cecil Corbin-Mark, Deputy Director and Director of Policy, WE ACT for Environmental Justice; Robert Werner, Citizens’ Climate Lobby; and Mark Dunlea, 350NYC / Green Education and Legal Fund
Tues. Dec. 6 – NYC – the Fight Against Cuomo’s Nuclear Bailout Continues
The Public Service Commission voted last week to approve the sale of the Fitzpatrick nuclear power plant. (see NYPIRG and AGREE tv interview.) But the first payments of the $7.6 billion subsidy to keep the old plants open doesn’t happen until April – so the fight is not over yet. On Dec. 15, the Public Service Commission will rule on a petition as to whether or not to re-open the decision-making process, especially since the subsidy was rushed through without examining other alternatives to keep jobs and lower carbon emissions. Prof. Mark Jacobson for instance just submitted a report to the PSC showing that investing in offshore wind would be a much more beneficial option for NY. Letters to the editor opposing the nuclear bailout are still needed.
Food and Water Watch will lead a protest of the nuclear subsidy at Governor Cuomo’s birthday fundraiser on Tues Dec 6 at 5:30 PM, Longacre Theatre, 220 West 48th Street, New York, to stop the Cuomo Tax and say no to nuclear bailouts! Together we’ll send a strong message straight to the governor: New Yorkers don’t want to pay higher electric bills to bail out failing nuclear plants. We deserve 100% clean, affordable, renewable energy. StoptheCuomoTax.org
Urge Cuomo To Sign Geothermal Legislation
A tax credit bill that would give 25% (up to $5,000) for residential Geothermal Heat Pump installations has reached the Governor’s desk and could be signed or vetoed by the Governor at any moment! Geothermal is a renewable energy technology using the earth’s constant temperature underground to heat and cool our homes. Geothermal heat pumps are key to reaching New York’s climate goal of cutting greenhouse gases. Far more of NY’s greenhouse gases come from heating buildings than from generating electricity. Geothermal is crucial to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.
Please call Governor Cuomo now – (518) 474-1041 and tell him to sign Bill A9925, the Geothermal Tax Credit Bill, to support the geothermal industry in New York State and cut greenhouse gas emissions so we can seriously address Climate Change and create clean jobs for New Yorkers.
Tues Dec. 20 – Rally for Offshore Wind at LIPA Board Meeting
Once again, LIPA may finally take a vote to approve a small offshore wind project – 90 MW South Fork Wind Farm by Deepwater Wind. There will be a rally at 10 AM. Dec/2- outside the meeting and then we will go in to the meeting for the vote. More details to follow. Groups are also urging Gov. Cuomo to commit to 5,000 MW of offshore wind by 2025 as part of his State of the State address in January.
Also, on October 27, 2016, BOEM announced the publication of the Final Sale Notice for a lease sale offshore of New York and the availability of a revised environmental assessment. The sale is scheduled for Dec. 15. NYS is bidding to control the development but other companies are expected to bid as well.
NYSERDA has identified 12 offshore New York locations which could generate up to 11,440 megawatts, enough power to generate over 3.6 million homes, with an estimated cost of $5.2 million a megawatt. NYSERDA is seeking comments on a draft plan to measure wind speed and ocean waves at a wind energy site off the coast of Long Island. NYSERDA hopes to bundle the results from the studies with an offtake agreement for the electricity to be generated at the site, and hold competitive bidding on the package. This approach, if accepted by BOEM, is modeled after a similar one employed in Europe.
Cuomo failed to include any financial commitment to offshore wind as part of the recent Clean Energy Standard while approving $7.6 billion to keep failing nuclear power plants open.
Court Rules Against Indian Point in Water Review Dispute
Is the fight to close Indian Point finally nearing an end? The state’s highest court determined that the New York Department of State was correct in its determination that it has the right to review Entergy’s federal license renewal applications to ensure any resulting permits are consistent with New York’s Coastal Management Program. For nearly 40 years, environmentalists such as Riverkeeper have argued that several factors make Indian Point’s use of water illegal: It leaks radioactive water, discharges heated water that damages river life, and its ineffective cooling water-intake screens do too little to stop the slaughter of more than a billion fish and other river organisms every year
Mayors Urge Trump to Support Climate Action
Mayor’s letter. We call upon you and the federal government you will lead to help cities leverage funds for the hundreds of billions of dollars in transit, energy, infrastructure and real estate development necessary to upgrade our infrastructure for the 21st century. We ask that you lead us in expanding the renewable energy sources we need to achieve energy security, address climate change and spark a new manufacturing, energy and construction boom in America.
Groups’ Efforts to Strengthen RGGI falling short
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) was a regional cap-and-trade program started during the Pataki era to reduce carbon emissions from electric plants. The impact of RGGI in reducing emissions is debated among environmentalists. A study done by Congress showed that the carbon price (about $6 per ton) under RGGI has been too low to reduce emissions but investing the proceeds from the auctioning of the carbon permits in renewables has helped reduce emissions.
Many environmentalists want NYS to adopt a comprehensive and robust carbon / greenhouse tax that covers all such emissions, not just electricity. Such legislation (A8372 / S6037) has been pending in the state legislature with 16 co-sponsors. Legislation to do a carbon tax study (A10673) has also been introduced.
A coalition of groups hope to improve RGGI this year through adopting a goal of a 5% annual reduction in carbon emissions at power plant. (Critics say this is still way too little to avoid catastrophic climate change.) Unfortunately, at this week’s regional RGGI meeting, the states appear headed to a much smaller reduction in the 2.5 to 3% range. (Politico)
Groups Urge Coast Guard to Halt Plans to Increase Transport of Crude Oil on Hudson
From Riverkeeper: The maritime industry has requested the Coast Guard establish a significant increase in anchorage grounds on the Hudson River to facilitate an expected increase in transport and storage of crude oil on the Hudson River transloaded from oil trains at Albany and possibly other Hudson River facilities. The Coast Guard has moved forward with considering the proposal with an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The comment period on the ANPRM ends on December 6th and we are advocating to (1) stop the proposal from moving forward to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking but if we can’t succeed there, (2) require the Coast Guard to conduct a comprehensive environmental impact statement. You can learn more by visiting www.riverkeeper.org/anchorages.
Please share this powerful 7-minute film produced by acclaimed filmmaker Jon Bowermaster We ask you for help in elevating this campaign to a national audience. Assistance from national, regional and local groups sending an e-blast and sharing on social media would give a major boost to our efforts, as this is another major proposal to facilitate the movement of Bakken and tar sands to refineries and for international export.
For More Info: Jeremy Cherson, Campaign Advocacy Coordinator Riverkeeper,
jcherson@riverkeeper.org
Marrakech climate talks show there is no turning back on clean energy transition
(Forbes Article) As the tremendous economic and social costs of climate change continue to mount, and as the window of opportunity for stabilizing the climate shrinks fast, talks among country delegations, cities, states, companies, investors, labor leaders and civil society took on a renewed sense of urgency in accelerating forward. Underscoring that climate action makes good economic sense,more than 360 U.S. businesses and investors – from small enterprises to more than a dozen Fortune 500 firms, including household names such as DuPont, Mars, Kellogg’s, General Mills and Levi Strauss – came forward to express strong support for staying the course on the Paris accord and continuing to advance complementary clean energy policies and investments.
Subsidy for Dunkirk Coal Power / NG Plant Gets New Life
The plan put together by Gov. Cuomo back in 2013 to keep the Dunkirk coal plant open by paying to help it convert to natural gas has a new life after Entergy – owner of Indian Point nuclear power plant – withdrew its legal challenge. Entergy had claimed that Dunkirk, an “uneconomic generation plant,” would be kept open “propped up by subsidies from a local utility and from a state agency,” and that this interfered with market processes approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
NRG Energy mothballed the four-unit plant in January 2016. The company had filed to mothball the facility nearly four years earlier, in March 2012, because it said costs were too high to justify continued operation, but the Public Service Commission ordered the company to keep some units at the plant operating to help maintain grid reliability. Then in December 2013, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced an agreement with NRG to repower the plant to a 435-MW natural gas facility. The project, which sought to keep the plant open through 2025, got the PSC’s approval in June 2014, and again in October 2014 during a rehearing prompted by legal challenges filed by Earthjustice and other environmental groups.