In 2018 New York’s voters suddenly elected a far more left-wing legislature than we had previously had, particularly the State Senate (the Assembly having already been deep in the progressive camp). Taking office in 2019, the new legislators quickly got to work seeing how much destruction they could wreak in a short period of time.

One product of their efforts was what we call the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), enacted in July 2019. The point of the CLCPA was to have New York State rescue the climate and save the planet, which supposedly was going to be accomplished by imposing mandates for eliminating hydrocarbon fuels from the energy system of this one little state.

It seems that nobody had pointed out to the very earnest legislators that New York represents only a small fraction of 1% of world CO2 emissions, the total elimination of which would barely be noticed in the overall world carbon balance. But the point was not necessarily to make any noticeable impact on world carbon emissions, so much as to show our virtue and our “leadership” by destroying our own wealth as an example to others, or something like that. Of most immediate consequence in the CLCPA were mandates for the electricity system, that 70% of our electricity must come from “renewables” by 2030 (“70x30”) and 100% from “zero-carbon” sources by 2040 (“100x40”).

Well, here we are in 2026 — 7 years down and only 4 to go toward the 70x30 mandate — and we have made almost no progress in “de-carbonizing” the electricity system. It is obvious to any thinking person that the 70x30 mandate has become a joke (to the extent that that was not obvious from the outset).

But there is the mandate written in black and white in a statute. Is anything to be done?