NY code enforcement officials must speak out about natural gas bans | Opinion
By now, many readers of this publication have heard the buzz from Albany about possible new legislation that could prohibit the use of natural gas in new home construction throughout New York state. This policy change could cause a lot of problems in upstate New York:
If gas furnaces cannot be used for new housing developments, there may be a need to use oil or propane (unless those appliances are banned also) for space heating due to lack of adequate local power capacity to operate heat pumps with electric heat backup. Natural gas is the cleanest burning, most efficient fossil fuel for space heating.
Many regions upstate are “winter peaking” already, meaning that transmission lines, substations, and local street wiring already hit their peak load in winter. Fossil fuel prohibition policies would demand many upgrades to this infrastructure. This high cost would either need to be covered in future electric rate increases, covered by general taxes, or else an impact-fee system may be developed in New York state. The impact-fee approach front loads more expenses into new housing construction. This approach is used in California and has caused major problems with housing shortages and high housing prices.
New York utilities have been successfully latching on to right-of-first-refusal rules regarding transmission development. These regulated monopolies then would have power to object to national (or international) electrical infrastructure contractors from coming into New York to help construct needed electrical infrastructure. Regardless of what else happens, keep an eye on this corporate welfare scheme. The utilities have too much conflict of interest and should not have this veto power.
To help advocate against natural gas appliance prohibition, code enforcement officials in upstate New York should make public statements that they will not act as henchmen for state government in the approach to ban natural gas appliances. They should declare that they will issue permits for new housing regardless of appliance type. The y should also declare that they will Impose no fines upon homeowners who replace their existing appliances with new appliances which use the same form of energy.
I have a 10 Kw solar panel array on the roof of my own home and an air-source heat pump with propane backup. New York residents could and should take personal action to shift our energy use profile towards “cleaner” energy sources. But jumping into natural gas prohibition is a poor approach.
Rich Purtell lives in Apalachin and is director of the Legislative Affairs Division of Libertarian Party of New York.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY natural gas ban: Code enforcement officers can help
