Another attack on the middle class

If you ask New Yorkers what they want from their state government, you’ll hear the same complaints over and over: Everything has gotten too expensive. Taxes are crushing. Our streets are less safe than they used to be. The migrant crisis is making life worse for everyone.

No New Yorker has ever told Albany, take away my heat. Shut off my hot water. Please throw away my stove. And yet, believe it or not, those have become the top legislative priorities of the state capital’s Democratic machine.

As I write this, Senate bill S2016B and its Assembly companion bill, A4592B, are ready to strike yet another blow to common sense and the middle class. The legislation is designed, under the guise of environmentalism, to remove hard-fought protections and guarantees that New Yorkers have enjoyed for generations. It takes a jackhammer to Section 30 of the state’s Public Service Law, which generally guarantees gas, electric and steam service to residential customers.

S2016B, in its own words, “Removes a residential customer’s legal entitlement to utility gas service.” Up to now, ensuring that New Yorkers have access to heat, hot water and the ability to cook was considered necessary. Now… it isn’t.

The legislation is a veritable hit list that, among other things, eliminates government support for our public gas infrastructure, and removes businesses’ right to utilize that infrastructure. Perhaps most troubling is the power the bills grant to the majority Democratic Party to exercise its power unchecked. Section 7 “acknowledges gas service may be limited or discontinued to facilitate achievement of the (Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act) climate justice and emission reduction mandates. Section 9 gives the “authority to order the curtailment or discontinuance of the use of gas for any customer … where the commission has determined that such curtailment or discontinuance is reasonably required to implement state energy policy.”

There will now be a commission that can cut off gas for a home, a block or even a neighborhood because the commission deems it necessary. And are we to trust that this commission will exercise its powers wisely and fairly? Or will its power be wielded as a cudgel to punish homeowners and districts that don’t vote for Democrats? Or perhaps just foolishly and fecklessly, demonstrating that absolute power corrupts absolutely?

Supporters of the bill would say that these criticisms aren’t justified because if people can’t use gas to keep their families warm, clean and fed, they can use electricity instead. And perhaps, if you’ve lived a privileged life, that might make sense. But for hardworking Long Islanders who are increasingly squeezed by the cost of, well, everything, the idea of “just” investing tens of thousands of dollars in new heating, hot water, and stove systems to replace the functional ones they already have — and were encouraged to invest in by the state for decades — is a bridge too far.

When Hurricane Sandy, like any of a dozen other events in recent memory, swept across Long Island, it cut off electricity for large sections of Nassau and Suffolk counties. Many people who didn’t have gas had no choice but to abandon their homes until service was restored, because electric stoves, heat pumps and water heaters are just as dead as your lights and TVs when the power goes out. If everyone switches to electric, what will we do when the next storm hits and we’re all sitting in the dark, cold and hungry?

Why is natural gas Democrats’ top enemy? Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers still depend on far dirtier fuel oil or wood for heat and hot water, but instead of offering them subsidies or rules to help them switch, our state government has instead focused on eliminating a successful public infrastructure in which it has invested billions of dollars, and that has succeeded in keeping millions of New Yorkers warm and fed for a dramatically lower environmental cost than the heating oil alternative.

It increasingly feels like we live in a world in which the middle is under siege. Common decency and common sense have gone out the window. The middle class is under unprecedented strain as the cost of everything from a carton of milk to heating their homes continues to rise. At the same time, the political middle ground has evaporated, leaving a polarized political scene more concerned with virtue signaling than effective governing.

The ongoing efforts of the state’s supermajority party to eliminate the use of natural gas are the perfect illustration of this new, unfortunate reality.

Jake Blumencranz represents the 15th Assembly District.