A plan to reduce New York’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80% over the next 41 years announced last week will benefit from bond financing, officials said. Last week Gov. David Paterson signed an executive order that created a commission to draft a plan to meet the reduction goals, which use 1990 as a benchmark, by Sept. 20, 2010.
“Climate change is the most pressing environmental issue of our time,” Paterson said in a press release. “By taking action, we send a signal that New Yorkers will do our share to address the climate crisis and we will do it in a way that creates opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship to flourish.”
In conference call with reporters, officials said that initiatives will be financed through a state and federal funding sources as well as offering long-term contracts to renewable energy providers through the Long Island Power Authority.
The state expects the New York Power Authority will begin financing about $150 million of projects annually under a program bill put forward by Paterson that passed both chambers of the Legislature but has yet to be signed.
“NYPA has for a very long time, over a decade, used bond proceeds to finance energy-efficiency projects in buildings of their customers,” said deputy energy secretary Thomas Congdon.
The new law “will expand NYPAs authority to finance energy-efficiency and green-building projects for any public building and for any of its private economic development customers,” Congdon said.
He also said that NYPA and other utilities in the state are exploring the possibility of using new clean renewable energy bonds and qualified energy conservations bonds, two bond programs that were expanded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
