Business leaders in the Southern Tier are calling for a regional cost analysis, as the Climate Action Council (CAC) deliberates its final “scoping plan.” The heavily debated scoping plan will provide state legislators with recommendations to meet the goals of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). Some of those include replacing all gas appliances and home-heating fuels with electricity by 2040 and reaching 85 percent zero emissions by 2050.

The Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce testified before the CAC to acknowledge the importance of utilizing renewable energy while also advocating for affordability and reliability during uncertain times. Another component of this plan that has left businesses worried is the speed in which the state plans to implement these proposals. The business community is not opposed to renewable-power generation so long as it does not compromise their ability to do business in New York state.

Businesses are still in the process of recovering from several global health and economic crises that have impacted energy prices and production. Given the potential for an economic recession, a plan that costs nearly $340 billion to implement will add to continued economic insecurity for businesses. In addition, recent reports have shown that the cost of electricity this winter is expected to increase between 30 percent and 40 percent, placing added pressure not just on businesses, but also on individuals and families.

Earlier this year, the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) released its “2022 Power Trends” report, which states that “deactivating existing generation without having in place resources capable of providing comparable reliability services risk the ability to maintain a reliably electric system” and in their 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook report the experts suggest that “there will be a great need for dispatchable emission-free resources to meet the flexibility and energy supply needs of the future system.” Risking reliability is unquestionable, especially at a time when our state is experiencing extreme weather events.

In addition to the NYISO’s findings that reliability margins are thinning, it has also found that upstate New York is well on its way to reaching 100 percent zero-emitting energy. According to the “Tale of Two Grids,” Upstate currently utilizes 92 percent zero-emitting resources and only 6 percent of its total energy profile relies on fossil fuels. These figures demonstrate that upstate New York is doing its part and that a one-size-fits all approach is not realistic for a plan of this size.

A cost analysis is not only the financially prudent approach, but also an imperative to ensure that the regulations put forth in the CLCPA do not create increased financial disparities in New York state. As the CAC finalizes its scoping plan and the legislature considers new policies to meet the goals of the CLCPA, we strongly recommend a regional cost analysis and needs assessment to identify solutions based on a regional rather than a statewide approach.        

Stacey Duncan is president and CEO of the Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce, a pro-business membership organization representing nearly 800 businesses throughout the Binghamton area.

There is great uncertainty on Capitol Hill these days, as ambitious politicians maneuver for advantage in the newly reshaped House and the Senate and reckon with the aftermath of the runoff in Georgia. But before all of our attention turns to what comes next, it’s worth taking a moment to look back at the November elections and what they tell us about the American electorate.

I say this because it’s easy to forget that in our system, power ultimately rests in the hands of the voters. It’s a trite belief, I realize, and if we have learned anything over the last few decades, it’s that the truisms of seventh-grade civics are a bit more complicated than we were taught. Write your member of Congress and you might get back a polite letter written by a staffer. Stand up at a town meeting and your representative will hear you out. But in the end, you’re competing for attention with lobbyists in Washington, D.C. and the leadership on Capitol Hill — not to mention the White House and the media.

Still, when we vote, something interesting happens. All the individual backgrounds we bring into the voting booth with us — class, race, ethnicity, or region, how we feel about threats to our democracy or threats to our pocketbook — become a message. It’s a collective opinion that politicians ignore at their peril. Elections are our chance to weigh in and set priorities, even if what ultimately happens over the next two years will be the result of the dynamics on Capitol Hill and at the White House. 

The recent election was a perfect example of what I mean. There have been all sorts of post-mortems since Election Day, but the broad outline was pretty clear. Americans, as is usually their habit, voted for reasonableness and common sense. Although people who deny the validity of the 2020 election did win office, there’s no question that 2022 sent a clear message that Americans are tired of that fight and, on the whole, prefer candidates who don’t call our system into question and don’t seek to rig election mechanics for partisan advantage. The tangible threat to abortion rights posed by the Supreme Court and anti-abortion politicians proved a powerful motivator, too.

At the same time, given the narrowness of many elections — and of the balance of power both on Capitol Hill and in many state legislatures — it’s also clear that large numbers of Americans are focused on the issues many Republicans campaigned on, including inflation, the economy, and crime. These, too, are bread-and-butter issues that our elected representatives will need to confront.

None of this tells elected officials exactly what they should be doing, but it does create a broad set of signposts that they should consider once Congress and legislatures convene. Between the lines, it’s possible to discern a key trend — on the whole, voters showed that given a chance to tack toward the center, they’ll do so. There were moderate Republicans who won in districts carried two years ago by Joe Biden, and moderate Democrats who held on in contests they were expected to lose. 

Many years ago, I wrote a column pointing out that Americans hold certain basic values in common whatever their ideology, including respect for our constitutional system, the peaceful and democratic resolution of political disagreements, a belief that politicians should behave ethically, and a bedrock desire for a system that gives everyone equal access to what it takes to get ahead in our society. Those values have been tested severely in recent years and will continue to be in the years ahead. But I would argue that this year’s elections demonstrated that most Americans still hew to those traditional beliefs — and they’ll be watching what happens in Washington and their state capitals with great interest.  

Lee Hamilton, 91, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years (1965-1999), representing a district in south-central Indiana.