Erie County, N.Y. (WBEN) - The Erie County Legislature’s Minority Caucus is speaking out in opposition to the potential state ban on natural gas heating and appliances in new buildings and the ultimate goal beyond 2030 of shifting to all-electric.
In a legislative session Thursday, Republican Erie County Legislators Chris Greene, John Mills, Frank Todaro and the newly-appointed James Malczewski introduced a resolution opposing a potential ban of natural gas heating and appliances in new buildings by 2025 and the prohibiting of the sale of fossil fuel heating systems by 2030.
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Legislator Greene argued extensively on the floor in overall opposition to the plans. "I do feel it's important for us to maintain our opposition to moving forward with the current plan in so much that there's two key issues opposing this plan. First and foremost, when you look at the regulatory body of New York State, that controls the cost of our current electric, they've analyzed this plan, that with the current replacement of gas-fired. 60% of our current electricity is by natural gas-fired plants. By that elimination, we can not, with the current technology with solar and wind replaced that and it's been projected, based on a news article yesterday, a 45 gigawatt hole. That 45 gigawatt hole can only be filled by borrowing electricity from neighboring either Canada, or coal-fired plants down in Pennsylvania, which is what we currently use. We're going to expand that gap and I'm not even sure if this is going to be a net positive, from a green standpoint, there."
Ultimately, lawmakers took a vote on eliminating taking the opinion of overall opposition of a plan to ban natural gas heating, which was put forward with a vote of 7-4.
However, the legislators did vote unanimously on the other resolve clauses, which entails the honorable body urging Governor Hochul to pause their rush and to fully examine the real life impact their decisions will have on all New Yorkers as well as forwarding the resolution itself to the Western New York delegation to the New York State Senate and Assembly.
Legislature Majority Leader Tim Meyers said after the vote, "I think there's a lot of misinformation out there." He added, "There's a lot of assumptions made, the governor talked about reducing the carbon footprint in her State of the State. There's not even a bill, there's not even a proposal in place. I'm sure they (New York State) would like to lessen the carbon footprint, but our theory was that they should take a better look at it, and not rush into it and, you know, think it through."
Legislature Chair April Baskin concurs with Meyers, stating, "This (the resolution) is a little premature, in my opinion, because I know that the conversation around this topic is still in a proposal phase, like the Majority Leader said, there is no formal law and there are no formal timelines that are put in place saying that this is actually what is going to be done with the future of national natural gas." Meyers continued, adding, "So I have no problem with the amendment that was passed today. I voted in favor of it and encouraged the Governor of the State of New York and the state legislature to take their time to assess the needs of residents and to not rush into anything and that's really what our body of government should be doing."
"Like I said on the floor, people are reacting like they're coming into homes and taking stoves out of their houses, that's not the case. You know, it's a long way off and there's a lot of work to be done before any decisions are made on that and quite frankly, it's not even this body's decision to make any of it," Legislator Meyers adds.
Legislator Howard Johnson argued the arguments should be made at the municipality level. "My suggestion, you guys should work with and within your municipalities to make those objections here from the county's perspective. You know, that's nothing that we normally weigh on. So this is just a memorializing resolution being sent up to say what our intent is, but really, the onus is on the municipality."