APGA submitted a short public comment responding to New York's draft scoping plan, which was developed by the state’s Climate Action Council. Working with the public gas utilities in New York, APGA provided that the policymakers are going in the wrong direction by calling for smaller buildings and new single-family homes to be fossil free by 2024 and multifamily buildings over four stories by 2027. As well, the draft scoping plan mandates a ban on installing replacement gas furnaces in single-family and small buildings by 2030 and in larger settings by 2035. For big buildings, the plan requires 1 million to 2 million of them to be electric by 2030 and thereafter 250,000 buildings to be electrified annually starting in 2030.
This proposal drastically discounts that APGA’s members in New York provide safe, reliable, affordable, and clean energy to their customers and support their communities by delivering fuel to be used for cooking, clothes drying, and space and water heating, as well as for various commercial and industrial applications. They, along with every other APGA member, are good stewards of the environment, evidenced by the way they maintain and operate their utilities. Natural gas and the infrastructure APGA members operate should be a part of New York, as well as every other state’s clean energy future. To learn more about New York’s draft scoping plan,
click here. To see APGA’s comments,
click here.
The state of New York is basically making a policy from New York City a statewide requirement. APGA previously wrote an article on what is happening in the city. To read it,
click here.
For questions on this article, please contact Stuart Saulters of APGA staff by phone at 202-544-1334 or by email at
ssaulters@apga.org.