Coalition: Keep $900M in shake-up-Environmentalists act to preserve programs
Brian Nearing
A coalition of environmental leaders want Gov. Andrew Cuomo to keep $900 million in annual funding for three alternative energy and conservation programs as he oversees the state's change to an as-yet undefined new system for energy policy.
Cuomo's utility reform push, called Reforming the Energy Vision, aims to open up the electric distribution systems of utilities in the state to more uses, including residential solar and wind and other so-called distributed generation. His goal is to shake up the existing utility model in which large, expensive, pollution-generating power plants supply most of the power to the electrical grid.
In a Tuesday letter to John Rhodes, president and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and NYSERDA Chairman Richard Kaufman, four environmental groups urged that funding be kept in place for the next decade for three existing energy programs _ the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), Systems Benefit Charge (SBC) and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (EEPS). Combined, the three program have an annual budget of about $900 million and are set to expire in 2015.
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