A Valley Viewpoint Narrative
Let’s stop pretending. New York’s affordability crisis didn’t just “happen.” It was manufactured—piece by piece—by lawmakers who fell in love with green-energy fantasies while ignoring the people stuck paying for them. Albany sold New Yorkers a utopian future powered by wind turbines, solar farms, and political righteousness. What we got instead was the most expensive electricity in America outside of Hawaii and Alaska—and a grid one cold snap away from humiliation.
Here’s the cold truth:
New York residential electricity now costs roughly 22.9–24 cents per kilowatt-hour, depending on the utility.
The national average? About 17–18 cents per kWh.
Do the math:
A typical household using 1,000 kWh per month pays $145–$150+ in New York—about $70 more each month than the national norm. That’s $840 a year for the privilege of living under Albany’s energy ideology.
And this is before the state forces all-electric heating, bans natural gas hookups, or orders homeowners and landlords to electrify every square inch of their lives. It’s the classic New York government formula:
Mandate → Restrict → Lecture → Make you pay for it.
Even the Progressive Policy Institute—a left-leaning organization normally aligned with Democratic priorities—has now stated plainly that New York’s 2019 climate law is an “undeniable failure.” Not my words. Theirs. According to their report, the mandates have:
Driven energy prices up
Undermined reliability
Overpromised results
Under-delivered on everything but cost
When your own ideological allies start throwing penalty flags, you know the game plan is broken.
Albany shut down steady baseload power like Indian Point. They banned fracking even though the Marcellus Shale is literally beneath our feet. They’ve stifled natural gas expansion while pretending wind turbines—which only work when the wind cooperates—could carry the load of 20 million people.
Reality check: You can’t run a modern state on weather-dependent energy and wishful thinking.
Now the consequences are unavoidable:
Higher rates
Greater risk of blackouts
Soaring home-heating costs
More disconnections across Con Edison and other utilities
A grid that experts warn is not ready for the electrification mandates Albany already passed
And what does the state do in response?
Hochul has already begun quietly delaying and watering down her own mandates—because even she knows the engine is overheating. But instead of admitting the policies were reckless, lawmakers offer new slogans, new speeches, and new promises that sound great until the bill arrives.
Let’s be clear:
You cannot heat your home with political talking points.
You cannot power a state with ideology.
And you cannot build affordability on a foundation of mandates that make everything cost more.
New Yorkers deserve an energy strategy rooted in balance, reliability, and economic sanity—not performative environmentalism crafted by people insulated from the consequences of their own decisions.
The affordability crisis is not accidental.
It’s not organic.
And it’s not mysterious.
It is the predictable result of leaders choosing symbolism over practicality—and expecting working families to absorb the damage.
Until Albany wakes up, energy “transition” will remain exactly what it feels like today:
A transition from affordable living… to survival mode.
The Valley Viewpoint 