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ALBANY – During the third installment of New York’s State of the State Address on Wednesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a four-step plan for building the Green Economy in New York State.
Cuomo asserted that converting to renewable energy will not only fuel the economy and provide “future jobs,” but it will also be “essential to our survival.”
“Our planet is in crisis. By every metric it is clear: Sea levels are rising; ice caps are shrinking; California is burning; the Arctic is melting; deserts are flooding. We have a once in a 100-year storm happening twice a year. 2020 was tied as the hottest year in history. Nature is telling us, ‘do something or I will’,” warns Cuomo.
Cuomo talked more thoroughly about the state’s continued push towards green energy on Wednesday, with a $29 billion investment including multiple offshore wind and solar projects.
The governor wants to put a green energy system in place that’s self-sustaining, and can compete with, and win, in the global green market.
“With this plan, New York State will now have five active port facilities serving the offshore wind industry, more than any other state,” Cuomo said. “These new ports will create 2,600 long- and short-term jobs and leverage almost $3 of private funding for every $1 of public funding, a combined $644 million investment in port facilities.”
The battery storage project and Offshore Wind Training Institute are two of three green projects the state is taking bids for.
The other project is aimed at breaking up congestion in the energy grid with the building of new transmission lines, conducting the energy to travel 374 miles between Times Square and Buffalo to share.
“The historic and compounding challenge in New York has been sending the renewable energy from where it can be produced to where it is needed, literally getting from here to there,” he furthered. “Much of the available real estate for renewable projects is in upstate New York. Many of the potential wind projects are offshore while much of the consumer need is in downstate New York.”
This project would connect the new projected source of renewable energy from the Atlantic and share with Upstate New York’s hydropower energy.
Governor Cuomo says other proposals to meet the state’s green energy goals not outlined in the State of the State will also be considered.
The energy projects, he believes, will create thousands of jobs helping the state’s economy recover post-COVID-19.
The governor’s Green New Deal set a goal of providing energy to the state’s 1.2 million homes and businesses through 100 percent clean energy by 2040.
New York’s COVID-19 response, the budget shortage, rebuilding the state’s economy, and reopening the arts were Governor Andrew Cuomo’s primary focus in the first two days of his State of the State.
He also talked in-short about expanding broadband access, expanding telehealth, public safety, racial inequity, election reform, and the legalization of recreational marijuana as well as online sports betting.
The governor will wrap up with the last part of his 2021 State of the State address on Thursday.
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