livingston
20×102mm Vulcan
Hochul Is Ready to Start Weaning New York Off Gas
Over the past year, a once-obscure corner of state law has become the center of attention for New York’s climate movement. Public service law, which governs utilities and the regulators who oversee them, requires those utilities to extend a new gas line to any building in the state that asks for it — and, as long as the building is within 100 feet of an existing main, to spread the cost across all of its customers, rather than charging the owner. A bill called the NY HEAT Act, first introduced in 2022, aims to overhaul this system, which effectively subsidizes the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure even as the state’s climate law dictates that it be scaled back.
The Affordable Gas Transition Act, notably scraps the “100-foot rule” that pays for new gas lines. Moreover, it ends utilities’ “obligation to serve” gas to every household — and could eventually allow the state to shift entire neighborhoods off fossil fuels,
Hochul Is Ready to Start Weaning New York Off Gas