Albany

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is unfairly directing millions of dollars from a state climate change program to benefit Long Island residents at the expense of upstaters and the poor, according to an advocates' report issued Tuesday.

Between 2013 and 2017, more than $200 million from the state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a program meant to cut greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants, was funneled to the Long Island Power Authority, according to the report from Environmental Advocates of New York.

Since that started, LIPA also pared back what it spends on efficiency and renewable energy programs.

RGGI funds come from power plant owners, which in turn are folded into the price of power paid for by utilities and their millions of customers across the state.

RGGI requires power plant owners in New York and eight other states to buy permits, called credits, to cover emissions of greenhouse gases. An international scientific consensus blames greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion as fueling ongoing man-made climate change.

Since RGGI started in 2003, New York has gotten more than $1 billion in such fees, which are aimed at energy efficiency programs, as well as renewable power projects. The funds are controlled by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

As NYSERDA began sending RGGI funds, LIPA began cutting back on its own renewable program spending, which fell from $115 million to $81 million from 2013 to 2016, according to the report. That mean less pressure to raise the revenue from its own 1.1 million customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties, and the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens.

LIPA has annual revenues of about $3.6 billion. Because of RGGI funding, LIPA customers are getting a benefit that is not being provided to customers of other utilities, raising questions of fairness, said Conor Bambrick, author of the report and air and energy director at EANY.

The report also questioned the use of another $170 million in RGGI funds to support a program aimed at replacing local property taxes on mothballed power plants and a tax credit program for homeowners who install alternative energy systems.

"New York is redirecting these funds and missing a real opportunity to be a leader on climate change," he said. "Until the administration's choices match their rhetoric, New Yorkers, especially those in in vulnerable communities, will continue to miss out on the full health and economic benefits associated with clean energy."

Bambrick said the property tax program has unfairly subsidized the property taxes of power plant owners who can later reopen power plants. In 2016, in Dunkirk, Chautauqua County, RGGI funds paid about$5.5 million in property taxes on a coal-fired power plant owned by NRG Energy.

The tax credit program benefits primarily middle- and upper-class homeowners, while leaving out poorer neighborhoods, Bambrick said. He called for the Cuomo administration to commit to spending more RGGI funds on poorer communities and areas most affected by power plant pollution.

John Williams, director of policy and regulatory affairs for NYSERDA, said that LIPA does collect from its ratepayers to fund programs. While the state is helping susidize the authority, the state also takes a "comprehensive perspective" on how to allocate RGGI resources statewide.

Williams also noted that the power plant tax program and the renewable energy tax credit programs were reached through the state budget process, which required agreement from state lawmakers.

New York is one of nine states in RGGI, the nation's first cap-and-trade program, which was spearheaded by former GOP Gov. George Pataki. The program also includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. In New Jersey, former Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, pulled his state out of RGGI in 2011.