THE ANDERSON FILES HOW A LANDMARK GREEN NEW DEAL VICTORY WAS WON

BY DAVE ANDERSON

With climate chaos accelerating and extreme weather disasters happening nearly every day, it’s easy to become depressed. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was a first step, but it’s not enough.

Climate activists just won a significant victory in New York, which hasn’t attracted the attention it deserves. The state legislature passed the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA), which authorizes the state’s publicly owned power provider — New York Power Authority (NYPA) — to determine each year whether New York is expected to meet its targets of achieving 70% renewable energy by

2030 and 100% by 2040. If the state isn’t on track, NYPA will step in to build enough renewable energy to fill the gap. Until now, the agency has been prohibited from building and owning utility-scale renewable generation projects.

Other renewable energy legislation hands over the responsibility — and resulting profits — of the green transition to private corporations.

The NYPA came out of the Great Depression. Lawrence Wang explains in Jacobin: “Founded in 1931 by then governor Franklin D. Roosevelt with the express purpose of ‘giving back to the people the waterpower which is theirs,’ the agency has become the country’s largest state-owned public utility, generating and transmitting up to a quarter of New York’s electricity, the vast majority of it created via hydropower. Between its extensive history in operating the most affordable and renewable utility system in the state as well as its ability to raise its own funds through AA-rated bonds, the NYPA is an ideal instrument for a renewable transition.”

While NYPA is publicly owned, the CEO and board are appointed by the governor. Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul supported the power authority owning and operating renewable energy projects, but disagreed with mandates that the power authority build to