NYPA’s Backsliding on Public Renewables Demonstrates Need For Public Power Democracy Act

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, December 10, 2025

NYPA’s Backsliding on Public Renewables Demonstrates Need For Public Power Democracy Act

Assembly Member Sarahana Shrestha and Senator Kristen Gonzalez introduce new legislation to democratize Power Authority and expand Board of Trustees

Albany, New York – The Build Public Renewables Act significantly expanded the jurisdiction of the New York Power Authority to build, own, and operate renewable energy projects, but the current board structure does not ensure board members have the relevant expertise to supervise this major new area of operations. A new bill, the Public Power Democracy Act(S8160), introduced by Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha will fix that.

Under current NYPA leadership, the authority is not keeping pace with its increasingly important role in New York’s energy landscape. NYPA just backtracked and cut 1.5 GW of public renewables from its updated strategic plan, proposing to build an inadequate 5.6 GW when the state needs to build 15GW by 2030 to meet its legally mandated climate goals.

The Public Power NY Coalition said: “NYPA backsliding and cutting 1.5 GW of public renewables from its updated strategic plan will eliminate 2,500 green union jobs, deprive thousands of New Yorkers of lower utility bills, and delay progress on shutting down the fossil fuel plants that are poisoning our communities. All over the state people are struggling to pay their energy bills. New York must deal with the energy affordability crisis and the only way to meet the state’s climate goals and lower bills is to build 15 GW of public renewables. The Public Power Democracy Act will ensure the NYPA Board of Trustees is capable of meeting the challenge and leading the nation.”

The Public Power Democracy Act expands the total number of NYPA trustees to 17, making it more representative of key stakeholders and constituencies impacted by its work and bringing it in line with other public authorities such as the MTA.

The Assembly and Senate will each appoint 5 trustees, giving needed oversight to the legislature that passed BPRA. The bill also ensures that trustees are selected from key stakeholders including labor unions, environmental justice advocates, community renewable energy advocates, renewable energy siting and planning experts, consumer advocates, public finance experts, and building electrification and energy efficiency experts.

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Note to the editor:

About Public Power NY

As chronicled in the new book “Organize or Burn.” 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.