In early April, while campaigning in New York, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for closing Indian Point, which anti-nuclear groups have long sought to close.

The next day, climate scientist James Hansen spoke up strongly for Indian Point.

The last few weeks have seen an orchestrated campaign to mislead the people of New York about the essential safety and importance of Indian Point nuclear plant to address climate change. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has repeatedly certified the safety of Indian Point. The scaremongers have taken minor maintenance questions and wrongly suggested they point to significant problems with the plant.

A few days later, Environmental Progress challenged Cuomo's staff on its proposal to protect nuclear plants but exclude nuclear. “How does the governor justify supporting only the upstate nuclear power plants and not Indian Point,” Cesar Penafiel, Director of Analytics at Environmental Progress, asked Richard Kauffman, Cuomo's energy czar at meeting last April.

(Watch EP's Cesar Penafiel ask his question at minute 1:24:45.)

Then, in early June, EP sent an open letter to Cuomo signed by Hansen and dozens of respected climate scientists and environmentalists. We praised Cuomo's CES while criticizing his exclusion of Indian Point:

Dealing with climate change requires that 100 percent of our electricity derive from clean, low-carbon energy sources. We thus applaud your efforts to include nuclear in a new, clean energy standard (CES).... At the same time, we are troubled by your efforts to close the Indian Point nuclear plant and to exclude it from the CES.

We debunked the alleged safety concerns with Indian Point one by one. We concluded by noting:

Nuclear remains the safest way to make reliable clean energy according to every major scientific review, and yet it is treated as though the opposite were the case. All power plants require monitoring and maintenance but only nuclear plants attract the attention of policymakers and the media. The justification for the double standard is that nuclear is uniquely dangerous but all of the data, including of the worst accidents, show the opposite to be true.

Though it's not exactly clear how it might have affected the final outcome, it is notable that in June and July, Gov. Cuomo's plans for a major solar manufacturing push in upstate New York were unraveling. After the US Justice Department announced an investigation of alleged corruption, IBM and a major Japanese investor put on hold over $1.5 billion in investments, including in a Solar City manufacturing facility.

Finally, on July 8, the staff of the New York PSC released a revised Clean Energy Standard proposal that includes Indian Point.

The following week, Entergy announced that it was in discussions with Exelon to sell Fitz, contingent upon passage of the revised CES.

The CES is by no means a done deal. It is being opposed by the usual suspects, including NRDC, the Sierra Club and Riverkeeper — both of whom take money from energy corporations that stand to benefit from closing New York nuclear plants.