O’Mara urges New Yorkers to reject skyrocketing energy costs: Says public will be ‘shocked’ when they find out where NY’s energy future is heading under one-party, Democrat rule (WATCH HERE)

Albany, N.Y., March 2—State Senator Tom O’Mara (R,C,I-Big Flats) today joined his colleagues in the Senate Republican Conference to call on all New Yorkers to get involved and submit official public comment on the state’s recently released Climate Action Council’s (CAC) draft scoping plan for implementing New York’s energy future.

O’Mara has been outspoken over the past few years that New York’s push to achieve aggressive renewable energy goals through the “Climate Leadership and Climate Protection Act” (CLCPA), signed into law in 2019, will come at great cost and consequences for local communities, economies, and residents.

O’Mara said, “New York State is traveling at breakneck speed to radically remake New York’s energy future.  It will be enormously expensive for state and local taxpayers, to mention nothing of residential and business utility ratepayers.  It holds far-reaching consequences for the state and local economies.  People are going to be shocked when they’re hit in the pocketbook.  We need a fuller discussion of what these actions potentially mean in the important context of feasibility, affordability, and reliability.  At a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars to New Yorkers and untold costs to the economy, we are barreling full speed ahead to further crush the affordability of living for families, drive up the cost of doing business, and destroy economic opportunity.”

[Watch Senator O'Mara's remarks at today's news conference HERE]

The CLCPA created the CAC to develop a draft plan for implementing the law.  The Senate GOP is highlighting the plan’s radical efforts to eliminate reliable, affordable sources of energy.  Natural gas hookups and services, as well as those from propane and heating oil, are vital for New Yorkers – especially in rural communities and during harsh winters – and cutting off these dependable sources of energy would be costly to residents and businesses and ineffective on a global scale.

“This Energy Affordability Crisis, fueled by the failed policies of One-Party Rule, is unaffordable, unforgiving, and unsustainable. Now Albany’s next ‘bright idea’ is ridding the state of critical energy sources such as natural gas hookups, which will only worsen the problem. This leaves families in the dark and in the cold. That’s why it is essential that we all pool our voices together, as commonsense New Yorkers, and call out these unrealistic ‘climate’ plans which will only further burden our communities,” said Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt.

Among many other provisions, the CAC blueprint calls for:

● No new gas service to existing buildings, beginning in 2024;

● No natural gas within newly constructed buildings, beginning in 2024;

● No new natural gas appliances for home heating, cooking, water heating, clothes drying beginning in 2030; and

● No gasoline-automobile sales by 2035;

● Installing onsite solar or joining a community renewables program by 2040; and

● Installing geothermal heating by 2040.

New Yorkers have until June 10, 2022 to submit formal public comments on the proposed energy plan. Senate Republicans today encouraged residents and business owners to make their voices heard on these disastrous policies. The following link can be used to submit public comments: https://climate.ny.gov/Our-Climate-Act/Draft-Scoping-Plan.

As the global energy crisis continues, O’Mara and the Senate GOP have proposed a multi-pronged “Take Back New York” legislative agenda geared toward providing relief, especially to low- and middle-income New York families.

To begin cutting energy costs, Senate Republicans are proposing:

● nearly $300 million in energy tax relief by eliminating the two-percent gross receipts tax and removing the underlying 18-A Assessment on utility bills;

● suspending the state’s gas tax to provide instant economic relief; 

● rejecting the Democrats’ proposed carbon tax that would raise prices at the pump by 55 cents per-gallon and on home heating bills by more than 25 percent; and

● no new tax or fee increases in the upcoming 2022-2023 state budget.

Watch today's Capitol news conference in its entirety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Dy9E33JmU