Around 50 people gathered late last month at a small theater in Lockport, a small city 20 miles east of Niagara Falls. They were looking for an answer to one vexing question: How did my electric and gas bills get so high?
They traded stories of monthly utility bills that had doubled or even tripled over the last year and discussed strategies to protest a pending rate hike from NYSEG, the local utility.
But if there was a sense of solidarity in the room that night, those gathered were short on solutions.
“ This impacts all of us,” said Michelle Roman, the former Lockport mayor who moderated the event.
It’s a scene that could have played out across much of the country — but especially in New York, where rising utility costs have added to an ongoing cost-of-living crisis that has helped push more than 1 million residents to other states since 2020.
This is the third installment of "New York State of Unaffordability," a podcast by WNYC and Gothamist. The four-part series explores the very different ways Gov. Kathy Hochul and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, her Republican challenger in the November election, say they’ll make the state more affordable.
In New York, utility bills were above the national average even before they started their recent climb.
An apartment dweller in New York City saw their average monthly electric bill jump from $76 in 2019 to $113 last year, according to Con Edison, the city’s largest utility. The average monthly residential heating bill, meanwhile, went from $137 to $238 over the same time period.
In Western New York, where the town hall was held, the increase was even greater. The typical homeowner serviced by New York State Electric and Gas paid about $70 a month for electric in 2019. Last year, it was $147. Natural gas bills went from $83 to $101, according to the utility company.
Hochul, a Democrat from the Buffalo area, has touted her “Ratepayer Protection Plan” that was approved as part of the state budget earlier this year. The plan includes measures meant to tie the utility companies’ profit margins and executive salaries to customer affordability metrics set by state regulators. The governor expanded eligibility for a state program that can result in a discount for income-eligible residents and scaled back the state’s climate goals, a move she claims will limit future utility bill increases.
Millions of state residents are also receiving $100 to $200 rebate checks in the weeks leading up to Election Day. They were approved by Hochul and state lawmakers as a way to defray energy costs.
“ Energy prices are high all over America, and the issue … is that we don't have enough supply to meet the demand,” Hochul said in an Oct. 13 debate. “So I have an all-the-above approach. And I did do energy rebates just as a short-term solution, but I'm trying to build more [power supply].”
A litany of factors have driven up costs, including tariffs, extreme weather events as a result of climate change and the war in Iran, which is increasing fuel costs worldwide. Blakeman has faulted Hochul for the rising energy costs and made it a centerpiece of his campaign.
The Nassau County executive has vowed to cut electric bills in half by cutting taxes, fees and delivery charges, rescinding the state’s climate law and green-energy programs and lifting the state’s ban on hydrofracking, a move that Blakeman claims would boost the state’s natural gas supply.
He says he will declare a statewide energy emergency to lift the fracking ban without requiring the Democratic Legislature’s approval.
“Yes, I can cut utility bills in half by lowering the taxes on utility bills, bringing down the excessive delivery costs and ending the green energy scam, and investing in the Marcellus Shale,” Blakeman said in an interview, referring to an untapped, gas-rich formation in New York’s Southern Tier.
The utilities are quick to note that much of the bill increases are out of their control.
In filings with the state, they point to a bevy of issues that have pushed prices up, including state-mandated fees, storm damage, rising infrastructure costs, inflation, supply chain shortages during the COVID pandemic and increased natural gas supply costs.
“We urge local leaders to work with state policymakers to advance real solutions, like making necessary investments in our energy grid, expanding energy affordability programs to support struggling New Yorkers and uncovering the real drivers of high bills that include mandates and unchecked gas supply costs that utilities have zero control over,” NYSEG spokesperson Michael Baggerman said in a statement.
Ken Girardin, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who has written extensively about utility costs, saw issues with the solutions proposed by both candidates.
Hochul’s efforts to bring down utility costs have been “cosmetic,” Girardin said in an interview. Blakeman’s plan, he said, is unrealistic.
“ The idea that you could magically slash electricity bills in half and still have the lights on past the 15th of the month does not match reality,” he said.
The voters who attended the Lockport town hall were similarly unimpressed.
Franklin Rezarch, a local bagel shop owner, said Hochul’s rebate checks amount to “putting a Band-Aid over a bullet hole.”
“You don't turn your nose up at 200 bucks,” he said. “But it’s a much bigger problem than 200 bucks.”
Angela Blackley, who owns an herbal apothecary, said Hochul’s rebate check will only cover a portion of a single month of her utility bills. And Blakeman’s plan isn’t feasible, she said.
“I don't think that Bruce knows what he's getting into,” Blackley said.
