It is appalling that Governor Hochul in conjunction with DEC and DPS, approved permits on Friday, 2/7, to allow the Iroquois 'Natural' Gas Pipeline Expansion by Compression (ExC) project to move forward in violation of NY State's own climate law! These permit approvals would allow the addition of two more compressors in NY State that are 12,000 horsepower each, one in Athens, one in Dover, which would boost the average operating pressure to allow transport of an additional 125 million cubic feet of natural gas per year to be burned by customers mostly in western Long Island and in NY City. This will INCREASE greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2.5 million metric tons of CO2 per year, which is the equivalent emissions of adding more than 1/2 million more cars driving average mileage per year!

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), NY State's climate law enacted in 2019, requires greenhouse gas emissions to be REDUCED by 40% from 1990 levels by the year 2030! These permit approvals are counter to this climate law requirement and they also violate Disadvantaged Communities requirements to reduce emissions as a priority in those communities. This decision is even more despicable when you realize that it comes in the wake of Gov. Hochul administration delaying implementation of congestion pricing in NY City, at end of legislative session in June (which likely ended hope of a vote on NY HEAT Act in Assembly), canceling the Clean Path NY Transmission line Tier 4 contracts on the day before Thanksgiving, and then delaying implementation of the Cap and Invest program, which was supposed to raise $3 Billion per year for climate related projects, for the third year in a row, and it may end up not be implemented until after the November 2026 election.

Also, beginning late last summer, Governor Hocul directed NYSERDA to begin pursuing new nuclear power which is already wasting time and money, as well as diverting attention from what NYSERDA and other state agencies should be doing, which is to redouble efforts to electrify NY State's economy to be based on renewable energy, enabled by energy storage and efficiency projects. Nuclear is too expensive, too toxic, too risky and too slow to be a viable climate solution.

NY's CLCPA has another mandated target of 70% renewable energy to be on our state's electric grid by 2030. Per Comptroller Tom DiNapoli report issued two years in a row, NY State was analyzed to be more than 3 years behind in meeting the 2030 emission reduction and the renewable electricity targets, and that was before the above awful decisions. Time and time again Governor Hochul and the state's agencies have largely made the wrong decisions and have in many instances ignored its own climate law.

Please call the Governor's office at 1-518-474-8390 and let her know that you are not happy with the Iroquois pipeline expansion decision and that you want NY to urgently speed up efforts on renewable energy, transmission upgrades, energy storage, efficiency programs and improvements in public transit, etc to actually meet 2030 mandated requirements of the CLCPA climate law of the state.

We are the world's 10th largest economy and have no valid excuse to shirk our obligations to do our part to save a habitable climate!

Thanks,
Valdi Weiderpass
Chair Susquehanna Group of the Sierra Club