Gov. Hochul's Team Is Spouting Egregious Mal-Information in Claiming Costs of Inaction Exceed Those of Climate Action

Guest Post by Roger Caiazza of Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.

I recently evaluated the New York Affordable Energy Future proposal for revenues generated by the New York Cap-and-Invest (NYCI) program. Their report includes a perfect example of New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) mal-information created by NYSERDA’s intentional misrepresentation of their cost estimates for the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) implementation plan.

Overview

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% GHG reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantified the impact of the electrification strategies. After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022.

NYSERDA claims that there was “robust public input” during the draft Scoping Plan process that “included 11 public hearings across the State and more than 35,000 written comments” that supposedly were read, summarized, and presented to the CAC. However, the summary was a slide presentation.

The public comment period for the Draft Scoping Plan closed on July 1, 2022. The CAC reviewed the feedback received from stakeholders over a series of five meetings from August 23, 2022 to October 25, 2022. The presentations for all CAC meetings are posted and all public comments received by the CAC are available. However, NYSERDA did not summarize the comments or provide a response to them.

False Information

There is a bigger problem with the Scoping Plan implementation process than the lack of documentation. The Hochul Administration and NYSERDA are guilty of peddling false information. Media Defence defines three false information terms:

• Disinformation: Disinformation is information that is false, and the person who is disseminating it knows it is false. “It is a deliberate, intentional lie, and points to people being actively disinformed by malicious actors”.

• Misinformation: Misinformation is information that is false, but the person who is disseminating it believes that it is true.

• Mal-information: Mal-information is information that is based on reality, but it is used to inflict harm on a person, organization or country.

I am not going to assign motives to the agencies and staff responsible for the Scoping Plan component of Climate Act implementation, so I am not going to accuse anyone of disinformation. However, there are examples of misinformation and mal-information on the record in the Scoping Plan process.

Misinformation

At the May 26, 2022 Climate Action Council meeting the topic of misinformation came up as I documented here. CAC Co-Chair Basil Seggos discussed his thoughts starting at 19:50 of the recording and brought up the subject of public engagement. He admitted that when they got out into public that they gained a better appreciation of the scale of the challenge. He said it was tough to communicate the challenges but when on to say there is lots of “misinformation and misunderstanding but also lots of excitement and support”.

One topic for misinformation according to CAC member comments was concerns about the reliability of an electric system that relies on wind and solar. Paul Shepson (starting at 23:39 of the recording said:

Mis-representation I see as on-going. One of you mentioned the word reliability. I think the word reliability is very intentionally presented as a way of expressing the improper idea that renewable energy will not be reliable. I don’t accept that will be the case. In fact, it cannot be the case for the CLCPA that installation of renewable energy, the conversion to renewable energy, will be unreliable. It cannot be.

Robert Howarth, starting at 32:52 of the recording) picked up on the same issue. He said that fear and confusion is based on misinformation, but we have information to counter that and help ease the fears. He stated that he thought reliability is one of those issues: “Clearly one can run a 100% renewable grid with reliability”, although he did admit it had to be done carefully.

Since then, the claims that the conversion to renewable energy had no reliability challenges that could not be overcome with existing technology have been shown to be false. The CAC members who dismissed anyone who disagreed as purveyors of misinformation were clearly wrong.

I have documented that experts, including those that are responsible for electric system reliability, agree that a new category of generating resources called Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) is necessary during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability.

The fact that this requirement was included in the Integration Analysis and Co-Chair Seggos did not call out the CAC members who claimed that no new technologies would be needed and allowed them to enter those statements in the record is clear misinformation.

Mal-Information

The authors of the New York Affordable Energy Future proposal were tricked by mal-information in the Scoping Plan. The report notes that “NYSERDA has estimated that decarbonizing the state will cost $11 billion in 2030, counting both private and public spending.

That statement was documented with the following reference: “According to p. 131 of the NY Climate Action Scoping Plan (NYS Climate Action Council 2022).” The Scoping Plan states “In 2030, annual net direct costs relative to the Reference Case are around $11 billion per year, approximately 0.5% of GSP; in 2050, costs increase to $41 billion per year, or 1.3% of GSP.

Lest you think this is an isolated reference, Governor Hochul’s executive budget described in the FY2026 NYS Executive Budget Book included the following paragraph:

From the beginning of her administration, Governor Hochul has made it clear that responding to climate change remains a top priority for New York State. Acknowledging that the cost of inaction greatly outweighs the cost of any actions we can take together, New York will continue to pursue an aggressive agenda in transitioning to a sustainable green energy economy, in a way that is both environmentally effective and economically affordable for all New Yorkers.

Unfortunately, the statement is deliberately misleading. The Hochul Administration wanted to be able to say that implementing the Climate Act would be beneficial. NYSERDA provided support for the sound bite “The costs of inaction are more than the costs of action” that has been the mantra of the Administration. However, that statement is misleading and inaccurate as I documented in my verbal comments and in my written comments on the Draft Scoping Plan. I described the machinations based on reality used to mislead and harm New York as a shell game in a summary post.

The reason that this claim is a shell game is that the cost estimate everyone wants to know is how much it is going to cost to achieve the New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and all the other targets in the Climate Act. The “New York Affordable Energy Future” authors said “NYSERDA has estimated that decarbonizing the state will cost $11 billion in 2030, counting both private and public spending” I believe that they presumed that number included all the costs of all the decarbonization programs needed to achieve the Climate Act targets.

The NYSERDA gimmick used to support the narrative picks and chooses what control strategies are included in the costs of de-carbonization. To evaluate the effects of different policy options, this kind of modeling projects future conditions for a baseline case. The evaluation analysis makes projections for different policy options, and then the results are compared relative to the baseline. The standard operating procedure is to use a business-as-usual or status quo case for the baseline.

NYSERDA did not do that. In my review of the Draft Integration Analysis supplement, I showed that NYSERDA conjured up a Reference Case to fulfill their imperative to “prove” Climate Act benefits. Instead of a typical baseline case, the Reference Case used in the scenario excluded programs that are needed to meet the Climate Act targets but were implemented before the Climate Act was passed. I think it is troubling that this approach was hidden.

I identified the problem only after I searched the Scoping Plan documents for the phrase “reference case” to try to determine what “already implemented” decarbonization programs were included in the Reference Case. The following figure reproduces the page with the documentation on page 12 in Appendix G Integration Analysis Technical Supplement Section I. The documentation is buried in the footnote for the circled reference for the blank caption to Figure 4.

Given its importance to the cost/benefit claim, my Draft Scoping Plan comment noted that this reference case caveat should have been clearly described in the text rather than in a footnote. The Final Scoping Plan document included explanatory text in section 5.3 of the document. However, that text was not even included in the draft document!

The appropriate descriptive text is in the final Appendix G section 5.3: Scenario Assumptions chapter and lists the “already implemented” programs. It states:

The integration analysis evaluated a business-as-usual future (Reference Case) a representation of recommendations from CAC Advisory Panels (Scenario 1), and three scenarios designed to meet or exceed GHG limits and carbon neutrality (Scenarios 2 through 4). Scenarios 2, 3, and 4 all carry forward foundational themes based on findings from Advisory Panels and supporting analysis but represent distinct worldviews. A detailed compilation of scenario assumptions can be found in Annex 2.

For the record Annex 2 refers to a massive spreadsheet that is certainly detailed but most certainly does not provide an easily accessible compilation of scenario assumptions. In particular, the documentation does not provide explicit information to determine what costs are specifically included in the Reference Case relative to the other scenarios.

The Reference Case described as “Business as usual plus implemented policies” includes the following:

• Growth in housing units, population, commercial square footage, and GDP

• Federal appliance standards

• Economic fuel switching

• New York State bioheat mandate

• Estimate of New Efficiency, New York Energy Efficiency achieved by funded programs: HCR+NYPA, DPS (IOUs), LIPA, NYSERDA CEF (assumes market transformation maintains level of efficiency and electrification post-2025)

• Funded building electrification (4% HP stock share by 2030)

• Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards

• Zero-emission vehicle mandate (8% LDV ZEV stock share by 2030)

• Clean Energy Standard (70×30), including technology carveouts: (6 GW of behind-the-meter solar by 2025, 3 GW of battery storage by 2030, 9 GW of offshore wind by 2035, 1.25 GW of Tier 4 renewables by 2030)

Mal-information is information that is based on reality, but it is used to make misleading statements that improperly convey a false narrative. In this case, the uncommon definition of the base case used for the implementation cost modeling led most New Yorkers to believe that annual net direct costs to achieve the Climate Act targets were around $11 billion per year.

The Scoping Plan mentions that those costs are “relative to the Reference Case” but the draft Scoping Plan did not document what programs were included in the Reference Case. This is why I believe that the “costs of inaction and more than the costs of action” narrative is mal-information.

Discussion

This post was prompted by my realization that the authors of the New York Affordable Energy Future report were misled by NYSERDA mal-information related to the expected annual net direct costs needed to achieve the Climate Act mandated targets. When I did some background research I found Media Defence definitons of three false information terms and realized that NYSERRDA was guilty of two out of three.

NYSERDA is guilty of misinformation because the Scoping Plan was approved because information fundamental to the implementation schedule was known to be false. The only way to justify the Climate Act schedule is to believe that no new technology is needed so the only constraint is deployment. CAC member Dr. Robert Howarth is the primary source of that presumption, and I am sure he believes that no new technology is needed.

However, the Integration Analysis recognized that during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability that a new DEFR technology is needed. The leadership of the CAC should have addressed this fundamental issue. That they didn’t was likely because acknowledging the problem is tantamount to admitting that the Climate Act law was deeply flawed.

NYSERDA and Governor Hochul are guilty of peddling mal-information. Their oft-repeated sound bite that the “costs of inaction are more than the costs of inaction” is based on reality but mis-leads and harms New Yorkers because it does not include all the costs necessary to meet the Climate Act mandates. No one cares which regulation, or law mandates a specific portion of the total costs necessary to meet the goals. The total costs are all we care about.

NYSERDA claims that there was “robust public input” during the draft Scoping Plan process that “included 11 public hearings across the State and more than 35,000 written comments” that supposedly were read, summarized, and presented to the CAC. The problem is that NYSERDA and DEC staff screened the comments and only presented generalities and not specific comments that questioned any of the narrative that the Administration wanted pushed. I specifically addressed this issue in my verbal and written comments but have never seen any evidence that anyone on the

I recently found an example of how a stakeholder process should work. The Santa Clara County Rapid Transit Development Project includes a master plan for transportation for Silicon Valley. An interview with the founding manager notes: “Part of the plan is a four-year public stakeholder review process. In the reviews, if the public came up with good ideas, the ideas went into the plan. If an idea wasn’t good, we had the responsibility of explaining why.”[1]

That commitment to responding to comments is sorely needed in New York. In my opinion, the CAC should have been informed about this issue. A summary describing what I claimed, their response to my concern, and a recommendation for the CAC is necessary to assure public confidence in Climate Act implementation. If NYSERDA is to have any credibility regarding their stakeholder process, then they must provide better documentation showing that all the comments were considered and addressed.

Conclusion

The Hochul Administration has been the first to pitch a fit and throw around the misinformation label when anyone says something contrary to their narrative.

They are not only guilty of pushing misinformation but worse, they spout egregious mal-information whenever they claim the costs of inaction are more than the costs of action.

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[1] “California’s High-Speed Rail Visionary” Bill Buchanan, Trains, Volume 85, No. 1, January 2025, pages 30-37.

#Caiazza #Climate #Hochul #Mal-Information #ClimateAct #NewYork

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  This post represents his opinion alone and not the opinion of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated. Roger has followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and has written over 490 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.