To the editor:

On July 30th, Gubernatorial Candidate Bruce Blakeman, made outrageous and misleading claims regarding NYS energy policy and renewable energy’s impact upon the high electricity bills that we are regularly receiving from NYSEG.  By omitting facts and conjuring up a sole boogeyman, he is positing that high NYS electricity rates have just arrived at our doorstep because of Ms. Hochul’s “green scam.” Indian Point, a nuclear facility which provided 25% of the electricity used in NYC and Westchester, was shut down for various reasons in 2021 under Governor Cuomo. While George H. W. Bush was president, and via bipartisan-approved legislation, our federal government opened up Pandora’s box to international companies acquiring our utility companies via the Energy Policy Act of 1992. As many residents already know, NYSEG is owned by the Spanish company, Iberdrola, under the subsidiary Avangrid. I would safely assume that regardless of political affiliation, most NYS residents would be inclined to believe that major utilities should not be owned by companies in other countries. In 2025, Rep. Josh Riley launched an investigation into NYSEG’s $450 million dollar dividend pay-out to Iberdrola, while the company simultaneously petitioned for a $500 million rate hike which would be paid for by consumers, effectively forcing customers to pool funds to make shareholders richer.

To no fault of our amazing line workers and crews, NYSEG, under the profit-driven management of Avangrid and Iberdrola, has been siphoning off electrical bill surcharges intended for grid upkeep for years upon years. Only now, are they claiming they need more money to staff up and repair/upgrade the lines and infrastructure that has been neglected for decades. These are the costs now being passed along to ratepayers. Albany should have been more vigilant at mandating and ensuring such maintenance since the early 2000s. On a local level, one only needs to drive down our state and town roads to see trees and branches hanging on aging lines and poles; many of these trees and/or limbs have been there for years. 

Investing in green energy has led to NY State being the top producer of community solar power in the nation, meaning that we produce more community-shared power than sunbelt states like Texas, Florida, and Arizona. That is something to be proud of. Indeed, there is a surcharge for green energy placed on our electric bills, but this is NOT why our electric bills are so high. For a brief moment in time, we lived in a country that approved and enacted the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act that funded investment in renewable energy. That meant more good paying jobs, domestic production of materials necessary for wind, solar, and respective storage. Various reports issued in 2026 estimate the loss of jobs in the renewable energy sector due to scaling back the “green scam” at close to half a million. Recently, our federal government roadblocked New York from moving forward with offshore wind generation to power up to one million homes. It is a wise thing to plan for a future in a world where the price for fossil fuels, inclusive of natural gas, fluctuates in a normal economy, nevermind weekly, given the inclinations of President Trump. The promise of inexpensive and environmentally-friendly natural gas was a pipe dream, no pun intended.

The answer is not to “drill baby, drill.” The answer is also not to turn our fertile agricultural fields into solar farms when we have not maximized warehouse roofs, former landfills and brownfields, correctional facilities, and various commercial spaces for smaller-scale generation. Personally, we were fortunate enough to install solar panels on our garage in 2025 before federal tax incentives were repealed. Besides a $37 flat monthly service/delivery fee, we now only pay for actual usage in February when the days are still dark and our credits from summer overproduction run out. A forward-thinking politician would know better than to fearmonger and to stymie a better future for all of New York. All New Yorkers desperately need and deserve lower electricity bills. And we need politicians that will fight in Albany and in Washington for policies and infrastructure that support a diverse, affordable, and more sustainable portfolio of domestic energy.

David J. Lavallee

Callicoon