Editor,
Last month the NYS assembly missed a major opportunity to clean up New York’s climate emissions and help New Yorkers deal with high energy bills.
A critical bill known as the NY HEAT Act didn’t make it through the assembly’s highly secretive budgeting process. The HEAT Act would’ve cut subsidies to gas utilities while capping utility costs at 6 percent of household income. The NYS senate passed the bill in March, but it was torpedoed by assemblymembers who rely on fuel industry donations to fund their campaigns.
I’m particularly disappointed that our assembly member, Didi Barrett did nothing to advance the HEAT act. Barrett was appointed the chair of the assembly’s powerful energy committee in 2023, where she began advancing the utility industry’s agenda and blocking implementation of climate legislation. As energy chair, Barrett’s co-sponsorship of the HEAT act would have helped assure its passage, but her endorsement was conspicuously absent. Over $10,000 of gas and utility industry donations to her campaign since 2022 may have had something to do with this.
Because I believe strongly that we must take action to minimize the worst impacts of climate change to ensure New Yorkers aren’t forced to pay for the gas industry’s mess, I’ve decided to support Claire Cousin in her bid to replace Barrett in the Democratic primary. Claire has vowed to refuse gas industry donations and to hold polluters accountable. We know where Didi’s loyalties lie, I’m betting on Claire to be part of a new generation in Albany.
Bill Kish
Millerton, NY
