FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Contact: Lee Ziesche, info@publicpowerny.org, 954-415-6228
Advocates “To Save Our Future, Dump Driscoll”
Public Power NY Calls on NYPA CEO to Resign After Authority Stalls on Renewable Energy Plan
Albany, New York – The New York Power Authority (NYPA) Board of Trustees discussed and approved a plan to implement the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA) today that failed to commit to build 15 gigawatts (GW) of public renewables, the amount needed for New York to meet its legally mandated climate targets of 70% renewables by 2030.
The plan, under the leadership of controversial CEO Justin Driscoll, will build an inadequate 3GW of renewables, .5GW less than initially proposed in a draft in October despite a record breaking 5,300 public comments submitted in just two months calling for NYPA to build 15GW, a demand supported by labor and legislators. The plan claims NYPA will explore an additional 3GW to be added in June, in response to the outpouring of demand for more, but does not go into further detail.
The Public Power NY Coalition released the following statement:
“NYPA’s first public renewables plan was a chance to turn New York into the kind of national climate and green jobs leader not even Trump can stop. Instead, it will turn us into the state that failed our own climate goals by a mile. Justin Driscoll, Kathy Hochul’s handpicked NYPA president, must be held responsible for this failure.
This last minute move to add a potential 3GW shows that Driscoll cannot ignore our power. It also proves what we have said since day one: that NYPA can add far more projects than its initial plan contained.
But to present a plan that ultimately commits to fewer renewables than originally proposed makes it abundantly clear that as long as Justin Driscoll, a fossil fuel lobbyist who has personally donated to climate denying politicians, is at the helm, New Yorkers will never get the NYPA we demand. For NYPA to lead the way just as its founder FDR envisioned, Justin Driscoll must either resign, or be removed. To save our future, Governor Hochul must dump Driscoll.”
Driscoll was never confirmed by the State Senate in the first place, as the body refused to consider him after it was revealed there was racial discrimination at NYPA under his watch. Governor Hochul had to sneak him through a legal loophole.
Advocate’s say it’s not too late for NYPA to lead the way that the AFL-CIO, the Building Trades Council, the American Lung Association, the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus, NYC city council members, dozens of climate organizations, and over 5000 New Yorkers have directly demanded. But it won’t with Driscoll working to ensure we fail our climate goals, or with Kathy Hochul continuing to prop up his reign of obstruction and failure.
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About Public Power NY
Public Power NY is a movement fighting to ensure New York effectively carries out the Build Public Renewables Act by building 15 Gigawatts of public renewables by 2030. Hailed as the first statewide Green New Deal law, BPRA was written by PPNY and passed in 2023 thanks to four years of organizing by a multiracial, multi-generational movement of climate and advocacy organizations, labor unions representing millions of New Yorkers and tens of thousands of New Yorkers who have taken action from upstate, downstate, and everywhere in between. With federal climate action off the table, BPRA has enabled NY to not just play defense against Trump, but lead the way the way FDR created NYPA to do.