Here in New York, both State and City, we have supposedly committed ourselves by law to ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets that are somehow going to “save the planet.” The targets for a few years out are completely impossible to achieve, and have been adopted without any meaningful consideration of whether the technology to meet them even exists short of leaving large numbers of people without heat or electricity. Sooner or later we will run at full speed into the green energy wall, but exactly when and how that will occur remains undetermined.

Maybe the first crunch will come via New York City’s Local Law 97. That statute, passed by the City Council in 2019, sets declining mandates for greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. Buildings failing to achieve the mandated levels face fines starting as early as 2024. The 2024 standards will be met by most buildings without major changes, but after that the mandated levels of emissions decline, and the fines increase. Slowly, large numbers of building owners are figuring out that the standards for 2030 cannot be met at all with natural gas heat, even with the very latest and most efficient equipment.

A couple of days ago I trekked out to deepest Queens, to its farthest northeast regions, where the local City Councilperson (by the name of Vickie Paladino) held a press conference on what to do about Local Law 97. In this area of Queens the predominant housing type is garden apartment coops, and the press conference was specifically focused on the problems of these coop buildings in complying with LL97. Ms. Paladino was there to announce that she had just introduced a bill in the Council to delay the implementation dates of LL97’s requirements for 7 years.

Besides Ms. Paladino, several presidents of local coops spoke. One speaker was a guy named Bob Friederich, the president of the very largest coop in the area, called Glen Oaks, with well over 1000 units. Here is a picture of one of the many buildings of Glen Oaks:

Friederich said that his coop had commissioned a study which indicated that for their buildings, no natural gas heat system could comply with the LL97 requirements come 2030, and that a replacement electric heat pump system would cost a completely unaffordable $25 million or so. Alternatively, the buildings would face fines starting at well over $1 million per year and escalating from there. Officers of a couple of other coop boards had comparable numbers to share. Meanwhile, New York State’s edicts for emissions reductions on a supposed path to Net Zero are completely clueless as to where the electricity is going to come from to switch all buildings to electric heat, let alone all cars to electricity as well.

So Friederich’s position was that his coop had been put in an impossible position, and he had no plan for what to do — other than to tell the politicians to change the ridiculous law.

The hostess of the press conference, Councilwoman Paladino, is one of just 6 Republicans on a City Council of 51 members. She pointed out that LL97 had passed the Council in 2019 by a vote of 48-3. However, there are the slightest glimmerings that a very slow awakening may be beginning. Also attending the press conference were two other Councilmembers — Linda Lee, from an adjacent district in Eastern Queens, and Ari Kagan from Brooklyn. Kagan, who represents a heavily Russian district in South Brooklyn (and who spoke with a heavy Russian accent), was initially elected as a Democrat in 2021, but switched to Republican just a year later in 2022. Ms. Lee is a Democrat, but indicated that her district has a higher concentration of coops than any other district in the City. She is clearly feeling some pressure to do something about this law. If she is feeling some pressure, that means that others are too.

These are just the first indications of pushback, as people slowly awaken to the crazy consequences of the laws to which we are supposedly committed. Obviously, it’s difficult to predict how this will play out. But these are middle-income coops, and I can’t see their owners all suddenly agreeing to discard perfectly functional gas heat systems with 10 or 20 years of useful life remaining, and springing for $25,000 or more per apartment to put in new heat pump systems that can’t keep the apartment warm when the temperature goes down to 20 degrees, as it regularly does around here. (Last night the low was 4 deg F.). More likely, they will stand their ground and dare the authorities to impose the million dollar fines. With several hundred thousand of these coops, in the end it won’t happen.

But while the grassroots revolt is only in its beginning stages, up at the commanding heights the climate bandwagon plows ahead as if nothing is changing. On January 10 Governor Hochul announced as part of her budget proposals that she wanted a new “cap and invest” system imposed as the means to effect rapid reductions in carbon emissions. I think the term “cap and invest” is some new branding, given the bad vibes that now accompany the prior brand name of “cap and trade.” But the idea is the same: limits for greenhouse gas emissions will be set, and then decreased each year. This will force the price of fossil fuel use up, and thus supposedly decrease the usage. In other words, the people will be punished for their sinful use of energy. From the Governor’s announcement:

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced a Cap-and-Invest Program to fund a sustainable and affordable future for all New Yorkers as part of the 2023 State of the State. Governor Hochul directed the Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to advance an economywide Cap-and-Invest Program that establishes a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions, invests in programs that drive emissions reductions in an equitable manner prioritizing disadvantaged communities, limits costs to economically vulnerable households, and maintains the competitiveness of New York industries.

They’re going to gratuitously impoverish New Yorkers by forcing up the cost of energy for no discernible reason, but supposedly mitigate the effects in some way by passing out billions of dollars raised via carbon auctions to favored political constituencies. Again, the chance of this actually getting fully implemented over the next ten years is minimal, but exactly how it will all fall apart is impossible to predict. It will all be an excellent opportunity for Republicans if they play their cards right.