New York lawmakers return to Albany this week after the President’s Week break.  Normally state lawmakers would buckle down to hammering out a budget agreement, due by March 31^st.  The week they were gone, however, the world dramatically changed.

The criminal enterprise, known as the Russian government, has launched a war against Ukraine.  Like any mob boss, Russian leader Putin does what he thinks he can get away with.  He has ordered murders, invaded smaller neighbor nations, launched cyberattacks against other countries – including the United States – and intervened in American elections to help Donald Trump get elected and roil American society.  He has not suffered significant penalties as the result of his behavior.  Now he has initiated a major war of conquest in Europe, the first since the 1940s.

There is no way to know how this will all play out, but if stiff Ukrainian resistance leads to a Chechnyan-style response by the Russians, the violence and human suffering could spill into nearby nations, including those which are part of NATO.  It’s not impossible to imagine a widening war.

Here in New York, new issues will move to the forefront.  Already one lawmaker has called for the state to divest itself of Russian holdings.  Governor Hochul has ordered all State agencies and authorities to review and divest public funds from Russia and ramped up cyber defenses. 

But for the Legislature, higher energy prices will be a central issue.  New Yorkers were already feeling the pinch and the European war will further destabilize the situation.

Some lawmakers will push for lower prices by reducing state taxes on gasoline and oil, others will push for better mass transit systems, more electric vehicles and a swifter transition to all-electric buildings.  Given that Russia’s army is built on petrodollars, there should be enhanced steps to wean the nation – and the world – off oil and gas.

When lawmakers left during Valentine’s week, such a change in circumstance was not imagined. 

But the state budget still has to be approved and the deadline looms.  The governor and state lawmakers have a financial cushion resulting from the federal government’s pandemic relief, but that won’t last forever.  The Hochul Administration argues that it will squirrel-away enough revenues to ensure that the state doesn’t have financial problems over the next few years. 

Yet, there are significant problems that need to be addressed.  Energy costs will move to the forefront for sure, but other issues remain – for example, what will the state do to bolster its many sagging colleges and universities? 

At a time of distrust in government, however, there is more to do beyond simply getting a budget done.  The governor and state lawmakers must act in a manner that bolsters New Yorkers’ support for their own democracy.  The surprising defense and support of Putin’s corrupt regime by many Americans, most disturbingly from political leaders, underscores this need.  Those elements in apparent alliance with the Russian government will likely seek to undermine national solidarity in support of needed responses to its aggression.

The best response to tyranny abroad is to double down on democracy at home.  New York should not only respond to Putin, it must also operate in a manner that is open and accountable in order to strengthen public support.

An example: Contained within Governor Hochul’s budget are billions of dollars to be appropriated without normal government oversight.  The practices of Albany’s “bad old days” simply cannot be continued under the current (or any) circumstances.  The final budget should detail that spending and ensure that it is overseen by the state Comptroller’s office. 

Moreover, the state should boost public support of its democracy in other ways.  The governor’s budget also includes a plan to overhaul the state’s ethics oversight.  It needs more work, but it’s on the “must-do” list after ethics enforcement that was essentially controlled by the state’s political elite collapsed.  We do not have to look too far to see what happens when an administration feels no accountability to the public it is sworn to serve.

Those issues and approving the $216 billion-plus in spending all await lawmakers as they return.  The world has changed, Albany must listen and respond.

Media stories from across the state are reporting the same thing – New York’s energy prices are going up, a lot.  One ConEd customer in New York City was reported to have seen her utility bill triple in one month from $163.73 in December to a whopping $512.07 by the end of January.

She’s not alone:  Electricity prices in and around New York City are up 28.2%. 

And the problem is not limited to New York City.  For example, one New York State Senator pointed out that one Hudson Valley utility “issued an alert regarding increased energy costs stating that they are projecting that natural gas bills would increase 19%, electric bills by 46%, and combination electric and natural gas bills by 29%.”

It’s clear that all of us are feeling the pinch, but those who are struggling financially are facing the breaking point.  According to a report released by the Public Utility Law Project, nearly 1.3 million New York households were more than $1.7 billion in arrears on energy bills in December 2021, before the recent rate hikes. 

So, what happened?

First, let’s take a step back and look at your utility bill.  In general, there are three main charges to your bill — taxes and fees, the “delivery charge,” and the “supply charge.”

The delivery charge is for maintaining the system that transports the energy from where it’s generated to your home: the wires, towers, and other related infrastructure.  Your utility assesses that charge, and that financial decision is regulated by the state, through the Public Service Commission (PSC).

The supply charge, on the other hand, is not the result of a utility decision.  Utilities typically do not generate their own energy, but they are responsible for transporting it to ratepayers.  A third party generates the power and sells that energy to the consumer.  It is the supply charge that is currently on the rise. 

This winter the cost of natural gas, which is used to heat homes and generate electricity, has risen sharply.  These bill increases are being fueled by a global increase in natural gas prices due to the colder-than-normal weather driving up usage, increased economic activity, and increased international demand for natural gas.   

Of course, that could all get worse depending on the level of Russian aggression toward Ukraine.

Why does New York have this complicated system?  It’s the result of decisions made decades ago to “deregulate” energy in New York.  The selling point was that deregulation would provide competition that would limit energy costs.  It hasn’t worked out like that.  New York had some of the highest electric rates in the nation prior to deregulation and it still does now. 

New York – like much of the rest of the nation – has a complicated system that results in utility ratepayers suffering from a double whammy of increasing rates and a bewildering marketplace.  It is incredibly difficult for most New Yorkers to remain on top of the goings-on of the PSC.    The only people who can attend PSC meetings on a regular basis are most likely those whose job depends on it, i.e., industry lobbyists.   

Ironically, New York has an organization that existed to fight for ratepayers but was all-but-eliminated in the early 1990s.  In 1991, then-Governor Mario Cuomo issued Executive Order No. 141, establishing a Citizen’s Utility Board.  CUB’s purpose was to provide a seat for ratepayers in the regulatory process.  The CUB would have lawyers and economists defending ratepayers before the Public Service Commission (PSC), ensuring that their viewpoint be heard when decisions impacting millions of consumers were being made.  Over 20,000 New Yorkers quickly joined.

As an independent entity entirely reliant upon voluntary contributions, the most invaluable section of this Executive Order gave CUB access to state agency mailings.  However, in 1995, then-Governor Pataki revoked this privilege.  He claimed that since the goal of the Public Service Commission was to protect consumers, allowing CUB even this minimal privilege was unnecessary.  Since that time, CUB has been dormant.

As ratepayers face big hikes in utility rates, it is clear that New York should bring its Citizens Utility Board (CUB) out of hibernation.  Getting CUB started up will take some time, but there is no reason to wait.

Yet, what can you do to offset utility costs today?  If you’ve been hit with an astronomical electric bill, here are three example of immediate steps that you can take:

• File a complaint with your utility and with the Department of Public Service.   
• Look into state programs that may help in paying your utility bills.  Governor Hochul recently publicized a list. 
• Utilities also offer the option of setting up a payment plan that could help you pay off big price hikes more easily.   

Over the longer haul however, more aggressive ratepayer protections are needed.  And there needs to be a grizzly bear of an advocate to do it.  Now’s the time for Governor Hochul to bring CUB out of hibernation.

Last week, state lawmakers continued their examination of Governor Hochul’s budget, in particular her higher education plans, by holding public hearings.  It was clear from the testimonies at the higher education hearing that there was widespread support for the proposals advanced by the governor, but that there was also broad agreement that her plan did not tackle the daunting challenges facing colleges across New York.

First the support.  Testifiers agreed that the governor’s plans to eliminate the so-called “TAP Gap,” boost funding for educational opportunity programs, childcare, and expand the state’s largest college financial aid program – the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) – were all worthy of support.

The “TAP Gap” is the result of a decision made in the first year of the Cuomo Administration as part of the SUNY2020 plan, which allowed regular increases in public college tuition.  But that plan included a trap door.  As public college tuition went up, financial assistance from the state’s TAP stayed frozen. 

In order to ensure that the neediest students still had their tuition costs covered by the state, the State University of New York and the City University of New York campuses were required to provide that assistance from their own coffers.  As the tuition price went up and financial aid stayed frozen, more and more financial aid costs from the state treasury were placed onto the books of public colleges.  As a result, the state forced public colleges to cover the needs of the most economically needy students.  As tuition kept going up, the gap increased and increasingly added financial stress to an already-stressed system.  Last year, lawmakers agreed to phase in state support to cover the gap between tuition and financial aid.  Governor Hochul’s budget would eliminate that gap this year.

While the governor’s budget eliminates the “TAP Gap” which helps stabilize public colleges’ finances, it does little to reverse the sector’s downward financial trends that have resulted from previous Cuomo budgets and the pandemic.  The upshot is that many public and independent colleges are facing financial peril.    

For example, SUNY was seeing dramatic enrollment declines (outside of its university centers) during the pre-pandemic period.  The enrollment losses have been staggeringly large at many community colleges.  This trend preceded the pandemic, but the pandemic has accelerated the slide toward a financial abyss.  CUNY had a more stabilized enrollment until the pandemic, and now it is facing revenue gaps from significant enrollment losses.  Smaller, independent colleges have also seen enrollment declines.  Enrollment declines result in revenue shortfalls that can result in reduced services and/or workforce reductions.  Both of these outcomes make those colleges less attractive to potential students.  The less attractive the campus, the less likely students will want to attend, which triggers a continued downward spiral.

Despite massive state financial surpluses, Governor Hochul’s budget proposes little to reverse these trends.

Testimony from college administrators, faculty, and students all called for significant additional state financial assistance.  According to one analysis, in order to restore the tuition losses to SUNY, the state would have to add $500 million in support and the City University would need upwards of $200 million.  Testimony also pointed out that the state’s support for private colleges through its “Bundy Aid” program was at a high of $100 million in 1990 and has been slashed to a bit more than $35 million in the governor’s plan. 

Groups called for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional state aid in order to reverse the increasingly dire finances of many colleges.

Testimony focused on the benefits of such additional investments.  Higher education plays an important role in boosting the economy of the state.  Institutions of higher education are often regional economic engines.  State investments in higher education generate economic activity – hiring staff, spending in the community, higher incomes and tax dollars.  Yet, for years the state has underfunded higher education to earmark other, flashier economic strategies – some that succeeded and some that failed miserably, and some that failed scandalously – with prison terms for top public officials.

Investments in higher education always pay back far more.  But state investments have stagnated while student enrollments have suffered.

Of course, enrollment declines can be the result of other factors as well – changing demographics and weakening economies.  However, it was clear from the hearing that Governor Hochul’s budget is simply too limited to provide the resources necessary to turn around higher education and help lift the state’s economy.   The message was unmistakably clear: Now is the time for the state to act, and to act boldly, to restore New York’s institutions of higher education.

Last week, Governor Hochul and New York’s political leaders agreed on new boundaries for Congressional and state legislative districts.  The lines were drawn by the Legislature’s Democratic majorities and the upshot is likely to result in a big hit on the dwindling political clout of the state GOP.

Redistricting is a once-in-a-decade exercise in which a state’s political boundaries are adjusted to reflect changes in population.  That process starts off with the census, which is then followed by “reapportionment” (the process by which the 435 seats in the Congressional House of Representatives are redistributed among the states to reflect the changes in the nation’s population).  Reapportionment led to the loss of one Congressional seat for New York as the state’s small population growth did not match that of other states.

Reapportionment is followed by “redistricting” in which state – and then local – officials redraw political boundaries to reflect changes within their jurisdictions.  This round of New York’s redistricting was initiated through a new process.  That new process was the result of an agreement spearheaded by former Governor Cuomo to take direct control of redistricting from legislators and shift that responsibility to a bipartisan commission.

That commission, however, could not come to an agreement and that failure allowed legislators to step in and draw the new lines themselves.  As a result, the new maps were developed by the Democratic supermajorities in each house and approved by Governor Hochul last week.

The new lines favored Democrats.  Independent analyses showed that Democrats will have voter advantages in 22 of the new Congressional districts and the new state Senate districts.  Republicans howled that the changes were illegal and quickly filed suit to block the plans.

The Republicans’ complaint is correctly based on the fact that the plans do work to the benefit of Democrats; whether the plan is illegal is not so clear.

New York is a heavily-Democratic state – at least when it comes to voter enrollment.  And the gap between Democrats and Republicans is growing.  Thus, any plan would benefit Democrats.  Based on data released by the Center for Urban Research at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 22 of the 26 new Congressional seats have a majority of voters who preferred President Biden over former President Trump.

Clearly, those lines favor Congressional Democrats – although previous preferences don’t necessarily translate into electoral success – but it doesn’t hurt! 

Compared to the previous redistricting, however, the outcome does not look so skewed.  Ten years ago, the courts drew the lines for New York’s Congressional delegation when the then-Republican-controlled Senate could not agree with the Democratic-controlled Assembly.  Those lines gave Democrats enrollment advantages in 21 districts (out of 27 at that time).  And since that time, over 845,000 new Democratic voters have been added to the rolls – compared to only a tiny increase in Republicans, a bit over 18,000 new voters for that Party.

Each Congressional district now contains about 777,000 people and the increase in Democratic voters exceeds that amount.

The Democratic advantage in the state Senate is even clearer – Republicans gerrymandered the heck out of the Senate in 2012 in order to keep their majority.  But eight years later in the 2020 election, even with lines drawn by Republicans, Democrats took 2/3 of the Senate districts.

This is not to say that Democrats are not guilty of gerrymandering; it’s pretty clear that their actions have the effect of gerrymandering, or drawing the lines to create political advantage.  However, whether they intended to gerrymander and thereby violated the law is up to the courts.

But the impacts clearly underscore the need for reform.  No New Yorker should have to doubt whether the state’s political boundaries are rigged.  New York needs an independent redistricting commission, not a bipartisan one – particularly the current one which doesn’t work anyway.

The arguments against independence are that other states rig their Congressional maps, thus New York should too – in order to help balance the scales.  That argument is logical of course, but it really is an argument for a nationwide reform, not inaction.

The state of California has the nation’s most independent redistricting commission.  That should be the model for New York and the nation.  Elected officials should not choose their voters, voters should choose their elected officials.

A rapidly heating planet, rising sea levels, oceans choked with plastic pollution, landfills overflowing with solid wastes, an increasingly decrepit drinking water infrastructure, and industrial chemical hazards menacing drinking water – these threats and others are the backdrop for lawmakers’ review of Governor Hochul’s proposed environmental budget this week.

As New York lawmakers continue to review the governor’s $216 billion proposed budget, this week they will focus on her plans to respond to growing environmental threats.  Broadly speaking, her plans are contained in three major categories: responding to climate changes resulting from global warming, protecting New York’s drinking water (and freshwater) supplies, and addressing the growing solid waste disposal crisis.

Climate change.  There is no greater challenge facing the world.  As a result of human activities, most notably from the burning of fossil fuels, the planet is heating up and doing so at an accelerating pace.  Earth’s global average surface temperature in 2021 tied with 2018 as the sixth warmest on record.  Collectively, the past eight years are the warmest years since modern recordkeeping began in 1880.  This annual temperature data makes up the global temperature record – which tells scientists the planet is warming.  According to NASA’s temperature record, Earth in 2021 was about 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the late 19th century average, the start of the industrial revolution.

New York State has among the nation’s most aggressive goals promising to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  In her budget plan, the governor adds to that effort with proposals to boost reliance on electricity to power transportation and to heat new buildings.  As the state’s grid gets “greener” due to a growing reliance on solar, wind, and other non-fossil-fuel forms of power, using electric cars, buses and trucks will drastically reduce the burning of fossil fuels.  Demanding that new building construction rely on electricity instead of natural gas for heating and power will also help reduce emissions.  The governor deserves support for those initiatives, although her timetable for action on the shift from fossil fuels to electricity for new building construction needs to be moved up to start by the end of 2023.  The state needs to be in step with the recently passed gas free law for New York City – the building capital of the state.

Of course, devoting resources to the mitigation and adaptation efforts to respond to global warming will take money.  Unfortunately, the governor does little to require that the oil and gas industries – who are responsible for our current predicament – pick up the financial tab for these costs.  That’s one place where lawmakers should fill the gap, by making the fossil fuel industry pay – and certainly eliminating any indefensible state financial supports for climate polluters.

And New York needs a comprehensive, easy-to-use, and easy-to-find climate ‘report card” so that policymakers and the public can monitor the state’s progress toward its climate goals.

Drinking water protection.  Across New York this winter, there is regular media coverage of water pipes bursting due to the age of the infrastructure as well as the pressures from changes in temperatures.  As the planet heats up, drinking water supplies will become increasingly more important to society and New York can ill afford to waste its supplies – or allow pollution threats to harm drinking water quality.

The governor does propose to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrading water infrastructures.  Given the state’s surplus and the enormous sums of federal support, the final budget should double the governor’s plan and spend $1 billion to fix New York’s aging system. 

In addition, the governor’s plan to protect wetlands – which can often act as a filter for underground drinking water aquifers – is a good first step but leaves too many wetlands threatened by development.  Her plan only protects wetlands that exceed 12 acres; the final budget must do better than that.

Solid waste reduction.  The governor has advanced an innovative plan to reduce packaging waste.  She proposes the establishment of an “Extended Producer Responsibility” program that would require “producers, not taxpayers” to be responsible for reducing and recycling packaging wastes.  The plan is seriously flawed with a business-dominated Advisory Committee which could end up being the “foxes guarding the chicken coop.”  Lawmakers should substantially improve this proposal to ensure that any advice be developed by independent experts working in the public’s – not the industry’s – best interests. 

The governor’s solid waste reduction plan has one big flaw – it shifts away from the state’s best recycling program, the Bottle Deposit Law.  That 40-year-old law has led to huge reductions in litter and does a far superior job at making “producers, not taxpayers” pick up the costs of beverage container wastes.  Lawmakers should demand the inclusion and expansion of this successful Extended Producer Responsibility program.

These are just some of the environmental and public health issues facing the state.  It’s the job of state lawmakers to dig deep into the governor’s proposals and reject those that do not work, demand accountability for performance toward environmental goals, and make sure that taxpayers are protected from the costs of irresponsible corporate behavior.