Albany Times Union. April 24, 2024.
Editorial: Don’t rush prison closures
To prepare for shutdowns, communities where correctional facilities are economic lifelines need time — and help from the state.
New York’s prison population dropped by roughly half since 2008 and is projected to continue falling. Against that backdrop, closing prisons makes fiscal and common sense.
So it was welcome news that lawmakers, as part of the newly approved state budget, are going ahead with a plan to close up to five prisons this year. The move will save the state millions of dollars.
But lawmakers and others who object to the plan raise a compelling point when they say the state’s three-month notification requirement does not provide communities with the time needed to prepare for the coming economic blow. Some lawmakers and prison employees have pushed for a six-month notification requirement that seems more than reasonable.
New York’s prison population exploded after the state enacted the so-called Rockefeller drug laws in the 1970s. That led to a boom in prison construction, with the facilities typically sited in rural upstate communities struggling with the decline of industry or economies based around natural resources. The prisons were viewed as economic development, a way to put thousands of rural residents back to work.
In that respect, the plan worked as prisons became a mainstay of the upstate economy — but a morally dubious and unsustainable one. The Rockefeller drug laws, after all, were an egregious blunder, as New York belatedly came to realize. Many thousands of lives were ruined unnecessarily. Many New Yorkers who didn’t belong in prisons were jailed nevertheless.
The injustice needed to end. But that doesn’t mean, of course, that closing prisons is painless. And since the state pushed prisons as economic development, it must help communities now that it is taking that economic lifeline away.
Three months isn’t enough time to do the job, not when a prison is likely the largest employer in town, the best source of high-paying work and a vital contributor to the tax base.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has suggested that some shuttered prisons be converted to housing, a notion that’s almost comical. For one, housing conversions don’t provide the long-term employment needed in communities facing the loss of a major employer. Meanwhile, housing is not especially in demand in most struggling upstate towns, particularly when many employees of the shuttered prison will be transferring away.
Communities such as Fort Ann — home to Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Washington County, which is among those likely to be on the chopping block — need better solutions than that. They need real plans developed with thought and attention to detail. They need more than three months to prepare for shutdowns that will transform communities and the lives of residents.
Again: Closing prisons is the right move, but there can be a wrong way to take the right steps. Rushing to close these facilities without adequate notification and planning pulls the rug out from under communities that need state government to be a responsible and concerned partner. There’s a better way.
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Adirondack Daily Enterprise. April 20, 2024.
Editorial: Rural schools deserve better
State lawmakers have a responsibility to understand the unique challenges facing our schools in places like the Adirondack Park and to adjust the state’s approach to supporting rural schools.
The Tupper Lake Central School District is cutting 17 to 20 jobs in the coming school year as it contends with a dwindling fund balance, rising expenses and the elimination of coronavirus aid from state and federal governments. Combined, district officials identified a $1.7 million deficit as they pieced together the district’s budget plan for the coming school year.
Yes, around $1 million of that deficit is the result of coronavirus aid going away. But that’s not the whole picture. Here’s the broader context:
Tupper Lake’s population is shrinking — Tupper Lake lost 824 residents between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census. In that same time frame, school enrollment dropped by nearly 10%, from 890 in the 2009-10 school year to 802 in the 2020-21 school year. (Enrollment was down to 722 at the start of this school year.)
Declining school enrollment is a symptom of a larger problem.
This region has an affordable housing crunch. The nation at large has a cost of living crisis. For many families, their expenses are far outpacing wage increases and the school district is suffering as a result.
When young people are able to establish themselves in a community –get a good job, buy a home, start a family — school enrollment increases or remains stable, staffing shortages ease and a community is altogether a better place to live. When young people cannot afford to put down roots, a community’s future — including the future of its schools — is put at risk in a variety of ways.
The people who are either losing their jobs or being shifted into new roles at TLCSD deserve better. But what’s happening at TLCSD is a microcosm of the struggles at rural school districts across the Adirondack North Country region and the state. Tupper Lake isn’t the only district trying to find a way to sustain its quality educational programs for kids in an increasingly challenging economic environment. This year in particular is a harrowing budget year, and for many local school districts, the outlook over the next few years isn’t looking very promising.
We have work to do locally to fix the larger issues that are contributing to declining school enrollment. In Tupper Lake, local lawmakers must do all they can to support new affordable housing developments, support businesses that employ local people and craft plans that continue to make Tupper Lake a great place to live. But lawmakers at the state level need to do their part, too.
“With the funding and the way that it works in the state and its formula … it just feels that small rural schools really take the hit when financial messes are made at the state level,” Nicole Curry, a Tupper Lake Middle-High School social studies teacher and co-president of Tupper Lake Teachers United, told Enterprise Staff Writer Aaron Marbone this week. “Or when priorities at the state level decide to change, our kids suffer.”
We couldn’t agree more.
It’s clear that the state’s support for rural schools leaves much to be desired. We hope that as budget talks wind down, state lawmakers really push for solutions to the problems that plague rural schools. Children who grow up in rural areas deserve a quality education and these problems don’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Something needs to change.
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Oneonta Daily Star. April 19, 2024.
Editorial: Transporting clean energy imperative to meeting climate goals
The world desperately needs more clean energy. Local and national agencies across the U.S. are working to become more sustainable and New York is no different.
In many cases, this energy is transported from remote areas to larger population centers where it can do the most good.
The problem is that there aren’t enough of the wires to move the energy from solar and wind farms that produce it in the rural sections of the country. New York isn’t alone in its need to produce more of these wires. In 2023, the U.S. added just 251 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, representing a decade-long decline.
The state Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES), which is responsible for reviewing wind and solar farms, doesn’t currently issue permits for these lines. But there is a push led by Gov. Kathy Hochul to speed up the process.
The proposed RAPID Act would allow ORES to permit transmission projects at wind and solar farms and require agency approval within a year for any clean energy permits. That would represent a change from the current process which takes two years on average.
Some in the state legislature want a system of checks and balances as well as more local input on siting rules. Fervent clean energy proponents see this potential delay as an impediment towards meeting climate law goals.
There’s a saying that a job can be done well, quickly or cheaply, but only two of the three at a time. This is the challenge facing those looking to solve the problem of transporting clean energy.
What isn’t in question is the need for this energy and the need for it now.
New York has done a decent job of making use of clean energy. As of last year, it ranked 19th among all states in renewable energy usage according to US News & World Report. But it has also fallen short of the goals it’s set for itself.
For years, the state has sought to rely on 70% renewable electricity by the year 2030. But it’s become clear that that goal is nowhere near being realized.
Rising costs, project cancellations and a lack of ratepayer-funded subsidies have derailed the lofty objective. The fact is that there aren’t enough energy projects currently in the pipeline to hit the projected target.
The ORES was established soon after New York passed its landmark climate law in 2019 in the hopes of getting renewable energy projects off the ground faster. By law, it has one year to review large-scale wind and solar projects that it gets presented with. The proposed RAPID Act would work to facilitate faster approval.
One solution that has also been proposed is the technique known as advanced reconductoring. This consists of replacing existing power lines with cables made from new materials that could greatly increase electric grid capacity.
It’s a technique that is common in other countries but has yet to be fully embraced in the U.S. due to unfamiliarity with the technology as well as bureaucratic obstacles.
Embracing this new concept would allow for the use of more solar and wind power in projects that have been proposed but can’t proceed due to local gridlock.
A point of contention with the proposal for the RAPID Act is the requirements aimed to protect local agriculture. That includes a farmland conservation fee for solar projects where the state would impose a 1% surcharge for every acre of designated farmland where the projects would be built.
There is also the issue of having the wires pop up in rural areas without warning and disrupting local communities. The RAPID Act would create scenarios where small towns would have little to no recourse in protesting the implementation of these wires.
These are valid concerns and will undoubtedly be brought up again as this issue continues to unfold. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s imperative that New York state does everything it can to contribute to a future predicated on the use of clean energy.
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New York Post. April 21, 2024.
Editorial: Gov. Hochul’s waterfront commission is a win for New Yorkers
We should note one real win for Gov. Hochul in the budget: She got the soft-on-crime Legislature to OK to a New York-only mob-busting waterfront commission after Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy killed the old bistate panel.
For much of a century, the Waterfront Commission was central to successful prosecutions against organized crime in and around local ports, as well as to ensuring fair employment.
But Murphy killed it in 2023, selling out to International Longshoremen’s Association and inviting the mob back into Jersey’s ports.
Getting a commission to keep organized crime out of the Port of New York is an important victory for dockworkers, shippers and, ultimately, consumers.
The new commission will do background checks and license companies and individuals working in the shipping industry at the New York port.
Sadly, the ILA got New York lawmakers to limit the commission somewhat: It must consult with employers and unions in a review of its regulations, and can’t suspend port workers who “without unlawful purpose” consort with known criminals.
Phil Murphy has guaranteed that the mob will again rule Jersey’s ports; cross your fingers that the Legislature’s mindless pandering to unions doesn’t let it take over New York’s waterfront.
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Wall Street Journal. April 22, 2024.
Editorial: Gone With the New York Wind
Three more offshore windmill projects hit the rocks, despite subsidies.
Is offshore wind a perennial infant industry? Despite receiving countless billions of dollars in subsidies over the last few decades, these energy projects are still failing to launch. On Friday three New York offshore wind projects hit the rocks owing to rising costs and technical snafus.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority called off contract negotiations with three wind developers after turbine manufacturer GE Vernova said it couldn’t deliver 18-megawatt turbines for the projects. As a result, the projects would have to be redesigned with more and smaller turbines that would make them noneconomic.
GE’s renewable business had planned to produce the 18-megawatt turbines but last year decided to limit turbines to a maximum of 16.5 megawatts, according to Bloomberg News. Bigger and more powerful turbines have recently been toppling over, requiring expensive repairs. This is one reason GE’s renewable business lost $1.44 billion last year, which was an improvement on its $2.24 billion loss in 2022.
The offshore wind industry received a strong tailwind from the Inflation Reduction Act, which included tax credits that cover 30% or more of a project’s cost. The law also subsidized the domestic manufacturing of components, which New York’s wind developers and their suppliers planned to exploit by making parts at new plants in the state.
But the industry has also faced significant economic headwinds. More than a dozen projects in the U.S. and Europe have been canceled or delayed in the last year owing to rising labor and material costs and higher interest rates. The cost of building an offshore wind project rose by about 60% between 2021 and 2024.
New York regulators recently struck agreements with offshore developers at prices of around $150 per megawatt hour, more than a third higher than those in 2019. For comparison, the wholesale price for natural gas power is around $30 a megawatt hour.
New Yorkers will get stuck paying excessive prices for offshore wind for 25 years to meet their political class’s climate goals. So even if offshore wind costs drop, the state will be locked into exorbitant long-term contracts. Meantime, the state’s grid operator has warned that New York City could face power shortages as soon as next summer owing to the shutdown of gas and nuclear power plants. Another climate-policy fiasco.
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