February 3, 2022
Comments Due: Monday, March 7th, 2022
In three years, your electric bill could be paying to harm the Hudson.
In three years, your electric bill could be paying to harm the Hudson.
New York State is planning to subsidize the Champlain-Hudson Power Express, a cable to bring Canadian hydropower under Lake Champlain and down the spine of the Hudson River to New York City. While this Wall Street-backed project claims to be clean, Canadian megadam projects face indigenous opposition and have questionable climate benefits. Now, the contract proposed by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority removes safeguards meant to ensure that we're adding new green energy in the region -- not just moving it around.
The Sierra Club has opposed this project in New York for almost fifteen years. It's time for us to make our voice heard: Tell the Public Service Commission to reject the proposed contract for the Champlain-Hudson Power Express.
Ways to make your voice heard:
The Sierra Club has opposed this project in New York for almost fifteen years. It's time for us to make our voice heard: Tell the Public Service Commission to reject the proposed contract for the Champlain-Hudson Power Express.
Ways to make your voice heard:
1) Submit your comments on the PSC website
- Case/Matter Number: 15-E-0302/15-01168 (Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Implement a Large-Scale Renewable Program and a Clean Energy Standard)
- See draft comments below
2) Email to the PSC Secretary directly
- Send an email the Secretary at: secretary@dps.ny.gov
- See draft comments below
3) Mail your comments directly
- Mail: the Hon. Michelle L. Phillips, Secretary; Three Empire Plaza; Albany, N.Y. 12223-1350
- See draft comments below
All comments submitted to the Secretary will be posted on the Dept’s website.
Help us to Prevent:
- Racial Injustice - to Quebec’s Indigenous Peoples’ survival by preventing hunting and fishing
- Environmental Injustice to Hudson River, drinkable water for people of the Hudson 7 (The 7 communities along the Hudson River who get their drinking water from the Hudson River)
- Economic Injustice -keep our energy jobs and dollars in NYS, not export to another country; we have and are developing renewable energy sources to supply our energy needs
**Draft Comments** (feel free to copy/paste)
Dear Secretary Michelle L. Phillips,
As you evaluate the Tier 4 contracts submitted to you by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, I urge you to consider economic value, benefits to NYS, ecological protection, and human rights and reject the contract with the Champlain-Hudson Power Express and HydroQuebec US. Instead, you should approve the contract with Clean Path NY and open a new Tier 4 solicitation to bring in-state renewable energy to Zone J.
The CHPE/HQUS project is concerning from an indigenous rights perspective, as several First Nations have requested that US states not contract with HydroQuebec until it compensates them for harm to their traditional territories and lifeways.[1] It also represents a major ecological disruption to the Hudson River, an important estuarine waterway that seven towns rely on for clean drinking water.
But beyond concerns about the broader project, the contract itself is weak, difficult to enforce, and threatens to undermine the purpose of Tier 4.
- The CHPE/HQUS contract can’t enforce clean energy promises. It both eliminates the Supplier Energy Baseline and is overly flexible about the amount and timing of delivery, which together risk forcing New Yorkers to pay extra for power that would be in our state anyways.
- Under the proposed contract, CHPE/HQUS may not deliver on greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The contract lacks the guardrails needed to ensure region-wide greenhouse gas reductions, by counting energy savings in Quebec and allowing up to eight years’ worth of dirtier energy than promised. Without strong standards for these reductions, we cannot be assured that we would meet our targets and avert the worst of climate change.
- The CHPE/HQUS contract ignores the program standards that NYSERDA itself recognized would provide the best benefits to New Yorkers. With no explanation, NYSERDA identified but then declined to consider policy factors - like support of in-state renewables and facilitating shutting down of dirty energy - that would support other instate transmission projects over the CHPE.
This contract does not meet the standards set by the PSC for the Clean Energy Standard and it is not in the interest of New Yorkers. It must be rejected.
[1] The nations include the Akitamekw First Nation of Wemotaci, the Pessamit Innu Nation, the Innu Nation of Labrador, the Anishnabeg First Nation of Lac Simon, the Anishnabeg First Nation of Pikogan, and the Anishnabeg First Nation of Kitcisakik.