TOWN OF POUGHKEEPSIE – Governor Cuomo’s clean energy standard announced weeks ago, which would provide funding for nuclear power, is being protested by the New York Public Interest Research Group.
Members rallied inside the state office building in the Town of Poughkeepsie to call for residents to send Cuomo letters in opposition to the plan, which would see utility bills increase to pay for the new funding.
NYPIRG campaign organizer Shaye Weldon said the “bailout of dangerous, unprofitable nuclear power plants” including the two reactors at Indian Point, is a bad decision.
“Two of them are among the six oldest in the whole world and they are failing,” Weldon said. “They are archaic, they are past their lifeline and so he came up with a plan to bail them out with taxpayers’ money.”
Utility rates will increase by a total of $7.6 million, Weldon said.
NYPIRG conducted similar rallies Thursday in White Plains, Albany, Long Island and New York City.
“Governor Cuomo’s plan to hike consumers’ utility rates to bail out aging nuclear power plants is the wrong way to go,” said Blair Horner, NYPIRG’s executive director. “It’s like subsidizing the horse-and-buggy industry while Henry Ford is rolling cars off the assembly line.”
