State's energy plan criticized

Albany -- Power industry, environmental  advocates agree that draft is too general

By KENNETH AARON, Business writer  First published: Wednesday, March 6, 2002

For one day, the groups that represent the electricity industry  and the groups that represent the environment agreed: New York's energy plan is short on specifics.

Both sides said Tuesday they want the state Energy Planning Board to put more teeth into the document, which runs for hundreds of pages and covers everything from energy efficiency to usage projections. But what it doesn't do is lay down ironclad ways to achieve the myriad suggestions and recommendations the plan contains.

"It is not enough for the plan to simply acknowledge the state's needs and assume they will be met,'' said Howard Shapiro, executive director of the Energy Association of New York, a power industry trade group based in Albany.

Ditto -- kind of -- said Anne Reynolds of Environmental Advocates, an Albany group.

"We need some very specific targets and goals,'' she said.

But Reynolds was talking about cutting emissions, while Shapiro was talking  about building more plants. They spoke during the Energy Planning Board's ninth  and final hearing on the draft plan, which has been subjected to scrutiny from Buffalo to Long Island over the past month.

And while many speakers rose to commend the board on the plan, many also added the word "but'' to their statements.

The plan suggests emissions cuts and applauds a move to renewable energy sources, but doesn't impose any mandates to do either. And that's by design, said William Flynn, chairman of the Energy Planning Board and president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, an Albany-based group  that funds energy research.

The plan is "not prescriptive,'' Flynn said. But he hopes the document sparks  debate among the public and legislators, since it's their job to generate those  guidelines.

State law calls for an update to the energy plan at least once every four  years. The last plan was released in 1998.

Of course, with a plan so broad, it would be impossible to make everybody  happy. And many of the comments made Tuesday were diametrically opposed.

"We cannot endorse a plan that continues to increase the amount of fossil  fuels that are being burned,'' said Manna Jo Greene, a representative of Hudson  River Sloop Clearwater Inc., a Poughkeepsie environmental group.

In direct contrast were the power interests, who fretted at the long section on renewable energy in the plan. "We are concerned that the draft plan has put  excessive emphasis on these approaches,'' said Susan Crosset, a vice president  at Niagara Mohawk Syracuse.

One side wants to speed up the Article 10 power-plant siting process; the  other wants to slow it down.

The draft plan calls for a study on how safe New York's energy infrastructure  is, in light of Sept. 11 events. It also calls for the state to use new, cleaner energy sources, and to come up with a wider range of fuels to use at new power  plants -- all of the ones currently up for approval are natural-gas powered.

There were calls to reaffirm the state's commitment to electric competition, which some industry officials said could be derailed if the state imposes too  many price restrictions on power plants.

"New York needs to stay the course and not be swayed by demands that short-term supply and price issues be fixed by re-regulating the electricity markets,'' said Gavin Donohue, executive director of the Independent Power Producers of New York Inc., an Albany-based group. "State policymakers need to give the new markets time to grow.''