The most regressive tax you’ve never heard of

Don Scott

'It is no wonder rates are soaring. It’s time for them to look in the mirror for the cause of unaffordable electric rates rather than telling their constituents to go complain to the Public Service Commission about their electric bills.'”

-Don Scott

Do you know what the 100-foot rule is? Neither did I until I read an email blast from a local environmental advocacy group celebrating Governor Hochul and the State Legislature for engineering its quiet demise.

Without fanfare or any news coverage, choosing natural gas has now become prohibitively expensive for homeowners. Reading about this under-the-radar passage reminded me of one of the scariest phrases in the English language: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

Our legislature and the governor, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that the free hookups residences have received since the invention of the gas-fired furnace were unfair to ratepayers. Until the ball dropped in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, if you wanted to connect to a gas line within 100 feet of your home, the utility paid the cost of the hookup much like there is no charge to connect to the electric power line running by your house to get electricity.

Somehow, our politicians see subsidizing a gas hookup to your home differently than they see subsidizing an electric hookup to the home. The former you now have to pay for; the latter you don’t.

If you want gas to heat your home, which is 25% cheaper than heating your home with oil or 50% cheaper than heating your home with electricity, you’ll need to pay several thousand dollars for the hookup. The rule change makes it cost prohibitive to heat your home with the cleanest fossil fuel available, should you choose to.

This new rule is the third recent assault on natural gas. First, the Legislature was going to ban gas stoves, but massive pushback caused them to change course. Next, it was going to ban new gas hookups for commercial buildings under seven stories, but the “All-Electric Buildings Act” was paused by court action.

Not surprisingly, rates for electricity are exploding. The same politicians who shut down Indian Point, block natural gas hookups, and make it nearly impossible to build new transmission lines or pipelines have an "all renewables" energy policy that requires a rapid buildup of our electric grid. As author Robert Bryce observed, “Of all the bad moves made by New York’s leaders, the worst one—a decision that deserves its own wing in the Energy Foolishness Hall of Fame—is the premature closure of Indian Point in 2021.”

It is no wonder rates are soaring. It’s time for them to look in the mirror for the cause of unaffordable electric rates rather than telling their constituents to go complain to the Public Service Commission about their electric bills.

Ironically, New York sits on one of the largest natural gas deposits on the planet, yet its fracking ban makes it impossible for our residents to take advantage. Instead, West Virginia and Pennsylvania stick their extraction straws into the Marcellus Shale to reap the rewards of our resources in the form of tax revenues and lower energy costs for their residents. In fact, the reason the United States stacks up so well compared to other industrialized nations when it comes to controlling carbon emissions is because of our abundance of natural gas. Natural gas emits 45% less CO₂ than coal per BTU and 30% less than oil per BTU. Wouldn’t we want to make that more accessible to homeowners?

There is a lot of chatter about affordability these days, and rightly so. Rules and regulations like the repeal of the 100-foot rule drive up the cost of energy and fall most heavily on seniors and the poor. It is the most regressive tax that can be levied.

New York seems to be in an arms race with California to decide who can be the most prohibitively expensive in terms of energy costs, taxes and overregulation. According to Forbes magazine, New York ranks second behind California as the worst state in the U.S. for starting a business. Skyrocketing energy costs are certainly part of the formula that earns this dubious distinction.

As I write this, it’s minus two degrees outside. That’s when energy policy stops being abstract. The repeal of the 100-foot rule makes the most affordable way to heat a home harder to reach, and the people who feel it first won’t be the ones writing the rules. We deserve better from Albany.