The New York Senate and Assembly are considering a new carbon “tax” that would deal a crushing blow to people and businesses who are already reeling from the impact of COVID-19 shutdowns.
This tax would affect anyone who buys gasoline, propane, heating oil, natural gas or electricity. You would have to pay more to drive your kids to school, get to work, take a shower, stay warm or cook dinner. Typically, New York residents would pay about $750 in year one, and the pain increases every year. Over 10 years, you will have paid an estimated $21,900.
If we don’t fight for a sane energy policy in Albany now, it’s just going to get worse. In 2019, Albany passed the CLCPA*, a law that requires radical reductions in carbon emissions. Of course, they didn’t bother telling us how much that would cost, who would cover the cost, or how it would all work. From what we can see, its implementation could be a nightmare that will raise all energy prices, add onerous taxes and equipment surcharges, force people to abandon the heating systems they like, disregard climate improvements that could be made without “electrifying everything,” and overload an already-fragile electric grid.
We support climate improvement. We don’t support throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Click here to send a message to your legislator about S3336 and A77. It takes less than a minute. You can write your own message or use the one provided. The important thing is that the Governor and your legislators will hear that you are against having to pay thousands of dollars more for a basic necessity.
If you stay silent, they will only hear from are those who don’t care about the damage this tax will do, or the fact that there are smarter, cheaper and more practical ways to help the environment.
For electricity use (TV, lights, etc.):
How we arrived at these numbers:
The bills dictate that the carbon tax would be set at “$35/ton of carbon dioxide equivalency and shall increase by $15/ton of carbon dioxide equivalency annually, to a maximum of $185/ton of carbon dioxide equivalency.”
You can read more about it here.