GUEST APPEARANCE: Albany energy aristocrats and the Great Finger Lakes Shakedown |
When the power goes out in a Finger Lakes winter, policy theories don’t keep you warm. Recently on a Thursday night, a transformer overload left nearly 1,300 Honeoye households shivering in the dark. Mine was one of them. As I sat in the cold, I was reminded of Gov. Hochul’s infamous advice to “huddle together” for warmth when the grid fails.
This isn’t my first energy crisis. Growing up in Honeoye, the 1973 crisis remains a vivid memory. I watched my late father — a dedicated GM Delco autoworker who earned every dollar through a grueling daily commute to Rochester — act as the “energy hawk” of our household. He kept a tight grip on the thermostat to ensure we stayed warm without breaking the family budget. During a national crisis, my parents understood the quiet grit it took to keep a family afloat, and they respected the value of a hard-earned dollar.
Fast forward to today, and Albany’s Shell Game has only become more insulting to that legacy. It is easy to preach “huddling” from a downstate Democratic majority seeking a massive financial cushion for themselves.
Sen. James Sanders Jr. of Southeast Queens and his colleagues have introduced a bill to hike legislative salaries to $180,000. While they’re banning gas stoves and forcing battery-powered snowblowers on us that would surrender to the first Finger Lakes drift, they’re lining their pockets to insulate themselves from the costs they’ve created.
At $180,000 a year, these “energy aristocrats” can afford to keep their houses at a tropical 75 degrees while the rest of us wait for National Grid to fix an overloaded system. It is a direct insult to the working-class grit that built this region.
The “bombshell” is already out: A recently leaked memo from NYSERDA admitted these mandates will soon cost households an extra $4,200 a year. This internal “smoking gun” confirms what I warned about in these pages on Sept. 6 (“Protecting our Finger Lakes from Gov’s flawed energy plan”) — the state’s own data knew the math would never work for the middle class.
To offset that multi-thousand-dollar hit, Albany offered a one-time gimmick: a measly $200 rebate check. It’s an insult to our intelligence and everyday struggles. They think a single pittance — barely enough to cover a week of groceries — will make us forget they’re taking a $38,000 raise for themselves while our energy bills skyrocket.
To every mom and dad in the Finger Lakes: This disconnect is lethal to our schools. When Albany forces a rural district to spend $400,000 on a single electric bus — triple the cost of diesel — that mandate acts as a classroom thief. It crowds out funds for teachers and books. Physics doesn’t care about virtue signaling; imagine a bus full of children trying to navigate an icy Bristol hill in sub-zero weather on a battery that’s decided to take a “winter nap.” Are the kids supposed to “huddle together” on the bus, too?
Thankfully, local Sen. Pam Helming of Canandaigua is listening. She is co-sponsoring common-sense alternatives such as S3328, to allow district opt-outs, and S8461, to return billions in unspent energy funds to ratepayers as credits.
My late parents’ generation sacrificed to keep their families secure. Today, we are being asked to sacrifice so a self-serving political class can feel good about their mandates.
If those in Albany want a raise, they should earn it by making New York affordable. Until then, they should get their heads out of the clouds and look at the crisis staring ratepayers in the face.
Steve Barnhoorn of Honeoye is a frequent contributor of “Guest Appearances” to the Finger Lakes Times.