According to Mid-Hudson News, ALBANY – State Senator Rob Rolison (R, Poughkeepsie) Tuesday launched an online petition calling on Governor Kathy Hochul and the Climate Action Council to reverse their proposed statewide ban on fossil fuel connections in new residential building construction starting in 2025.
Under the additional terms of the proposal laid out by the council and repeated in the governor’s State of the State address, fossil fuel heating equipment would be phased out in all existing residential buildings by 2030 and 2035 for commercial structures. Senator Rolison’s petition can be viewed here.
“We can all agree that protecting the environment should be a nonpartisan issue. After all, the American conservation movement was launched by a native New Yorker, Teddy Roosevelt,” Rolison said. “But preventing middle-class homeowners and small business proprietors such as restaurant owners from efficiently cooking in and heating their homes in a cost-effective way is a recipe for disaster.”
If approved the gas ban would require current homeowners to replace their propane, gas or oil-fired furnaces with all-electric heat pumps by 2030. The independent Empire Center think-tank notes that, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, “electrical production in New York produced 64.8 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases in 1990, but only 31.5 million metric tons in 2016, due to a shift from petroleum oil and coal to natural gas.” The think-tank predicts net costs of up to $300 billion for New Yorkers when the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the law which created the council, is fully implemented.
The freshman lawmaker is a member of the Republican minority in the State Senate.