Shocked

“To me that’s just too much government interference…””

Scott DuBois Delaware Town Supervisor

HORTONVILLE — On October 20, moderate Democrats wrote a letter urging Governor Kathy Hochul to pause the state mandate to build all-electric buildings starting next year, according to published reports. 

The mandate, known as “The All-Electric Buildings Act,” appeared in the state budget of 2023 and prohibits new gas hookups in new buildings under seven stories starting January 1, 2026, and to all other buildings starting in 2029. 

The stated purpose of the bill is “to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution in new construction projects.”

District 100 Representative Paula Kay and other assemblymembers signed a letter written by New York Assemblyman William Conrad asking Hochul to pause implementing the law after recent New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) reports show the state’s electric grid has significant reliability issues. 

His letter states that, “While I share the long-term goal of decarbonizing our state, I believe the imminent requirement to mandate all-electric new buildings must be paused pending thorough reassessment of grid reliability, cost impacts, and risk mitigation. The NYISO has flagged serious concerns that warrant a more cautious approach.”

The NYISO is a not-for-profit company that manages New York’s electric grid and its wholesale electric marketplace. On October 14, they issued a press release highlighting the findings of two reports, which states, “The Comprehensive Reliability Plan warns that the New York State electric system faces an era of profound reliability challenges driven by the convergence of three structural trends: the aging of the existing generation fleet; the rapid growth of large loads (e.g.: data centers and semiconductor manufacturing); and the increasing difficulty of developing new supply resources due to public policies, supply chain constraints and rising costs for equipment.”

NYISO Senior Vice President of System and Resource Planning Zach Smith concluded that the two reports indicate that the electric grid has reached an inflection point and that, “the system may need several thousand megawatts of new dispatchable generation within the next ten years.”

On Friday, October 24, Governor Kathy Hochul was at a press conference in Rochester and mentioned the letter: “We just received correspondence from some upstate members of the legislature so we’re looking at that seriously….We have made some accommodations in the past, like the electric buses, we had to delay that some time because there’s not enough electric buses being built so, I’m going to look at this with a very realistic approach and do what I can because my number one focus is affordability right now because New Yorkers are suffering too much.”

Local Response

In Delaware’s monthly meeting on October 8, Building Code Enforcement Officer Kris Scullion said that he just received the 2025 New York State Code books for New York State and the biggest change from the previous edition, released in 2020, was new energy mandates. “Always energy, they’re always increasing insulation requirements, and there is talk of the new electric rule that’s supposed to take effect January 1, 2026, that all houses [have] no gas, no oil.” 

Town Supervisor Scott DuBois asked, “Really? How does that play out?”

Scullion responded, “At the moment, I don’t think it can, I think they’re gonna have to kick it down the road like the School Bus Bill.” Scullion was referring to NY S03586, a bill that mandates a transition to zero-emission school buses.

“I don’t think it’s gonna be enforceable… NYSEG will tell you, they don’t have [the power]; they need to upgrade. They’ve got too many more demands with developments in big draws that they can’t keep up with, so I don’t see that we can do that, but that’s gonna have to come from [the state].” 

Scullion said the new law does not prohibit preexisting gas and oil units but pertains to new construction. 

“To me that’s just too much government interference, that’s just me personally, that’s crazy,” said DuBois.