ALBANY — Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha announced this week that Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed the Public Renewables Transparency Act, which she says will add transparency measures to the New York Power Authority’s buildout of publicly-owned renewable energy.
The new law will ensure the New York Power Authority must be part of the state’s energy planning board; that the Authority must publish a dashboard that shows the progress of is renewable projects on its website; that it must share a public report on the implementation of their renewable projects at at least three board meetings per year; and when the New York Power Authority holds public hearings, it must prioritize locations that are accessible by public transit if transit exists in the area.
Shrestha’s office said this law will help with the monitoring of the Build Public Renewables Act in 2023 that mandates the New York Power Authority to ” build enough publicly-owned renewable energy to fill the gap to meet the state’s climate goals, and to use the revenues from the sale of this energy to fund automatic bill discounts to the most needy households in the state.” Shrestha’s office said that before this law, the New York Power Authority was effectively prohibited from building new renewable energy
“Through the powers of the New York State legislature, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt created the New York Power Authority, a state-owned corporation much like the Hudson Valley Power Authority, in 1931,” Shrestha, D-Esopus, said in a statement Tuesday. ” He did so in order to prevent Wall Street investors from owning and profiting off the state’s emerging hydropower. As a result, NYPA lowered electricity rates immediately, and to this day, provides some of the cheapest and cleanest electricity in the country.”
The New York Power Authority has served as a model for the proposed public takeover of Central Hudson under the Hudson Valley Power Authority, Shrestha’s office added.
“When FDR utilized the model of powerful public corporations, both as governor and as president, it was so that the government could address enormous challenges swiftly, effectively, and without breaking the backs of taxpayers,” Shrestha’s office said. “It’s the same model the Hudson Valley Power Authority uses. Currently, NYPA is a financially lucrative state corporation not subsidized by taxpayers—its bond rating is six levels higher than Central Hudson’s. This model of state corporations is still very much in use across the country, but in order to make them effective, we need to also strengthen measures of accountability, transparency, and democracy that apply to them.”
Shrestha’s office said she has also introduced legislation that she says will “expand and democratize” the New York Power Authority’s Board and ensure its “members represent specific areas of expertise that are necessary to unleash the full potential of NYPA in addressing the supply side of energy affordability.”
The New York Power Authority presently has a seven-member board, all appointed by the governor. Shrestha’s office noted that, unlike Central Hudson, the authority generates energy and owns much of the state’s high-voltage transmission lines and does not directly serve residential and business customers.