Brace for THOUSANDS more in energy costs — unless Albany fixes NY’s insane climate law

Critics, including us, have been warning that New Yorkers’ energy costs are about to soar even higher, thanks to the state’s insane 2019 climate law.

Now, a state agency itself is confirming those warnings — and has even put a price tag on the pain: a whopping $4,100 a year extra per household by 2031.

That’s just for electricity, reports the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency; the bill for gas for home heating, as well as gasoline costs, are also set to shoot up. At the pump a gallon of gas is expected to go up an eye-watering $2.23.

Plus, businesses’ utility costs could rise 46%, and truck-delivery expenses over 60% — sending consumer prices through the roof.

Gov. Kathy Hochul seems to have recognized at least the political danger: As she runs for reelection on a promise of affordability, voters won’t find the extra hit particularly “affordable.”

So she appears set to push for changes or delays to the law — at least until after she’s safely reelected.

Sometimes rule changes are needed to “fit the times,” argues Hochul Budget Director Blake Washington, as if “the times” have dramatically changed unpredictably since the law was passed.

Truth is, opponents have been flagging its astronomical (and pointless) costs for years.

Last year, even the left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute called it an “undeniable” failure that’s only succeeded in “driving up costs for families, constraining reliable supply” and imperiling “the political viability of the state’s climate agenda.”

The Climate Act was first championed by ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo before Hochul doubled down on slashing gas emissions by 40% by 2030 with the goal of achieving 100% zero-carbon-emission electricity by 2040.

Yet fantasizing about an alternate reality didn’t bring it about: “There is a lack of market capacity to deliver the volume of renewable energy” for EVs, heat pumps, etc., to meet the requirements called for under the climate law, notes NYSERDA’s bombshell memo.

Hochul has already quietly pushed her new energy tax — the “cap and invest” program for reducing greenhouse gas emissions — past this fall’s election.

She’s also paused the state’s all-electric building mandate. And she’s sought new modular nuclear-power plants upstate.

Yet she’ll need the Legislature’s backing even just to delay the law’s mandates, and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, for one, is already on record opposing any effort to mess with them.

Unless Albany lawmakers get on board and head off the additional costs, voters would be justified in showing them the door come November.