Given the energy sector’s sizable contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it is not surprising that programs to address GHG emissions are increasingly being addressed by energy lawyers, policy analysts, engineers, and economists through public utility commissions, rather than by traditional environmental regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Moreover, given congressional gridlock and the legal difficulties in addressing climate change on the federal level through existing laws—as demonstrated by the Supreme Court’s recent surprising and unprecedented grant of a stay of the Obama administration’s rules to reduce the GHG emissions of existing power plants1—the development of programs through state energy laws might continue to be the most sound solution to reducing GHG emissions in the United States.
In his 2016 State of the State address, Governor Andrew Cuomo outlined New York State’s aggressive plan to reduce GHG emissions through the adoption of a Clean Energy Standard, a $5 billion Clean Energy Fund, and the advancement in the installation of solar and wind energy through programs to be adopted by the New York Public Service Commission (PSC). Also, the governor, along with a bipartisan group of governors of 16 other states, recently signed the “Governors’ Accord for a New Energy Future,” an aspirational agreement that seeks to have the states diversify energy supply, expand clean energy and transportation, modernize energy infrastructure, and work cooperatively among states to implement these changes.2
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