ALBANY – Lawmakers in Albany passed legislation last week that would once again streamline New York state’s authority to permit the construction of power generation facilities.
If the Senate and Assembly can agree on one version of the bill and get it inked by Gov. Eliot Spitzer later this month, the law could potentially bring the need for cross-state power lines such as New York Regional Interconnect’s into question, a spokesman for at least one state official said.
The generation siting law, known as Article X, has been expired since Jan. 1, 2003. Since then, any newly proposed projects have had to undergo both local and state reviews, and be subject to environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The currently defunct Article X would consolidate that process under one agency; the New York state Public Service Commission.
State Energy Committee Chair Paul Tonko (D-Amsterdam) praised the Assembly’s version of the law, which calls for more public involvement in the review process and holds new projects – no matter what fuel source they will use – to more rigorous environmental standards.
“Our power plant siting bill will establish a thorough process for reviewing new power plants,” Tonko said in a press release Wednesday. “For years, our state has experienced record demands for electricity. We need the energy from new power plants, but they must be built in a responsible way.”
<a href="http://www.evesun.com/topics/news/NYRI/">NYRI</a>, a Canadian-backed company, is proposing to transport upstate electricity downstate by way of a 190-mile-long power line. Company officials say the $1.6 billion project will help relieve an energy bottleneck in southeastern New York. They attribute the constraint to an ongoing lack of generation and transmission investment. However, opponents of the power line believe building generations facilities closer to where they’re needed in Metropolitan New York makes more sense than NYRI’s proposal, which would run through eight counties, including 44 miles of Chenango.
“Now we can all put the pressure on to get generation facilities sited downstate. It prohibits NYRI from using the answer that there’s no way to site generation closer to the city,” said Duncan Davie, spokesman for state Senator Jim Seward (R-Milford). “They (downstate) will have to produce the power to meet their electrical needs.”
The lack of an Article X process has been a deterent to new generation investment, electricity experts and state officials have said. According to New York Independent System Operator, the regulated agency in charge of overseeing the state’s wholesale energy markets, new generation facilities will be a key to insuring energy reliability in the next five to ten years.
When asked if Article X would be good or bad for NYRI’s project, power line spokesman David Kalson said the law would have “no effect at all” on his company’s proposal.
