“Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants state agencies to develop shovel-ready sites for large-scale renewable projects as the private sector struggles with a challenging regulatory process.
Cuomo made the proposal on Tuesday during his budget address. He said New York needed to take the lead in doing more, faster, on the issue of climate change.
“Setting goals without the means to achieve them is… baloney,” Cuomo said. “We have to do it faster. It currently takes five to 10 years to begin constructing a new energy project. You can’t have the goals we have and then have a system of bureaucracy that takes five to 10 years to start a new energy project. It just does not work.”
Developers of new solar, wind and other projects have raised concerns about the current siting process. Only a handful of projects have been approved under a 2010 siting law that Cuomo signed. None of the projects approved under that Article 10 process have begun full-scale construction.
Cuomo said he wanted to bring together the Department of Public Service, Empire State Development and the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority, “reform” them and “flip the whole model.”
“We need a new, faster siting methodology, financing and building methodology,” he said. “Let the state go out and find the site and do the approval and provide the financing and set up the transmission lines and then bring in the private developer.””
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French, Marie. Politico 21 January 2020.