New York's 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) establishes whole-of-government effort to achieve economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reductions (including a goal of net-zero by 2050) and amends the Public Service Law (PSL) to add a new 66-p, which tasks the Public Service Commission (PSC) with establishing programs to reduce emissions from the electric sector even more quickly (including a goal that by 2040, the "statewide electrical demand system will be zero emissions"). In May 2023, the PSC initiated a process regarding the Zero Emissions Target, and the early phases of that process have focused on interpreting the 2040 goal, which is fraught with ambiguity; notably, neither "statewide electrical demand system" nor "zero emissions" is defined in the CLCPA or other New York law. To date, this process has included two requests for public comment as well as a Department of Public Service technical conference. Policy Integrity has contributed with comments throughout, and additionally hosted a conference on state-level pathways to zero-emissions electric grids, focusing in significant part on this statutory requirement.
On November 4, Department of Public Service Staff filed a document proposing definitions of key terms in PSL 66-p. The newly-filed proposal aligns with Policy Integrity's recommendations and approach in key respects, including:
- That the electric sector goal must be understood as part of the state’s economy-wide GHG reduction effort and be understood in a way that harmonizes with that;
- That based on the structure of the CLCPA, “zero emissions” is best understood as referring to greenhouse gas emissions only and not co-pollutants; and
- That although the CLCPA specifies the need to account for statewide emissions accounting to include upstream emissions associated with electricity and fossil fuel imports but is silent on imported fuels other than fossil fuels, upstream emissions associated with novel fuels such as hydrogen must be considered to avoid undermining the integrity of the CLCPA’s overall framework.