New York’s state Public Service Commission just OK’d big National Grid rate increases that’ll hike many upstate utility bills by $600 a year — fueling outrage Democrats will soon feel.
Downstate, Con Edison is seeking an 11.4% hike to electric bills and 13.3% gas hike — largely thanks to green-energy mandates that Gov. Kathy Hochul embraced along with the rest of the party.
The “climate agenda” is delivering pain we’ve long warned of, in New York and New Jersey.
Across the Hudson, electric bills as much as tripled this summer — and could cost Democrats the Jersey governor’s race.
“Once they realize that Democrats’ bungled energy policies are to blame for their exploding utility bills as well, it could blow November’s race wide open,” warned Bethany Mandel last week.
Yes, GOP Gov. Chris Christie shares in the blame for the Garden State’s madness, but it started with the Democrats before him and accelerated under Dem Gov. Phil Murphy, who let the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant close in 2018 and aggressively shut down fossil fuel-powered electricity sources.
New York’s worst-in-the-nation Climate Action Plan began under Gov. Andrew Cuomo but then Hochul doubled down on closing reliable natural-gas power plants and pretending expensive — and less reliable — solar and offshore wind installations could not only replace them, but make up for growing electric demand.
Both states are using more electricity than ever — even as “decarbonization” prevented supply from growing to match.
Even without soaring power demands for data centers and AI, green policies that push ever-more consumers to need electricity for cooking, home heating and vehicles put added strain on the grid.
Hochul’s belated push for new nuclear reactors upstate comes too late to stop the crunch; even “clean power” advocates admit the high risk will cause chaos for New York’s power grid.
Democrats who locked both states into this idiocy certainly should pay the political price.
Murphy barely won re-election in 2021; Hochul came shocking close to losing in 2022 — and all the issues that boosted Republicans then remain.
Now Democratic policies are delivering soaring utility bills in both states — and voters will know who to blame.