BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
Nearly 2 million National
Grid customers will be paying
more each month, as the utility
company looks to recoup $129
million in construction costs
for a controversial pipeline that
will bring natural gas through
northern Brooklyn.
The announcement adds salt
to the wounds of local activists,
who have vehemently opposed
the pipeline — including by
withholding utility payments
to the company unless they
abandoned the “racist” project
that fi gures to run through predominantly
Black and brown
neighborhoods while adding
toxic Co2 to the local air.
“We will not pay for National
Grid’s racist, dirty, North
Brooklyn fracked gas pipeline.
We will not pay for our communities
and our climate to be
destroyed,” said Lee Ziesche,
an organizer with the activist
group Sane Energy Project, at
a rally in June. “This is about
decades of environmental racism.”
Now, the so-called Natural
Gas Reliability Project will
force local customers to pay
more for their utility bills, after
the state’s regulatory panel
Public Service Commission
voted Thursday to approve the
rate hike that will see some customers
COURIER L 20 IFE, AUGUST 20-26, 2021
in Brooklyn, Queens,
and Staten Island charged approximately
$66 more per year
for three years.
The Sane Energy Project, an
organization leading the fi ght
against National Grid, said that
around 300 people withholding
their utility payments as part of
the strike
“The joint proposal provides
suffi cient funding for the companies
to maintain safe and reliable
service while moderating
rate impacts during the term
of the rate plan,” said John B.
Howard, chair of the PSC. “In
addition, the joint proposal is
consistent with our nation-leading
clean energy initiatives, as
well as our social and economic
policies.”
As part of the deal, National
Grid agreed to halt the rate hike
for a year, but that halt is retroactive
— meaning many locals
are already seeing a higher
bill.
Roughly 1.2 million customers
in Brooklyn, Queens, and
Staten Island will see an increase
of 3.8 percent in the second
year and 3.3 percent in the
third — raising their bills an
average of $5.56 and $4.89 per
month, respectively.
In a statement, the Public
Service Commission said that
the rate increase proposal they
approved was “dramatically
lower” than National Grid’s
initial request, and requires
National Grid’s headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn. WikiCommons
that the company comply with
the Climate Leadership and
Protection Act, which seeks in
part to reduce statewide greenhouse
gas emissions by 40 percent
from 1990 levels in the next
decade.
Many activists, however,
protested the expansion of longterm
infrastructure that burns
fossil fuels — a demand that has
only become more salient since
the United Nations released a
damning report on the effects
of climate change, and many
city leaders have become more
vocal about the potential ramifi
cations for the Five Boroughs.
As a concession of the newlyreached
agreement, National
Grid will be required to stop
marketing natural gas and provide
their customers with information
about alternative homeheating
methods and the goals
of the CLCPA.
“The goal is to have the utility
sell less gas in the future,
a clear-cut indication of what
will happen at other gas utilities
in New York as the CLCPA
requirements take effect,” the
commission said in a release.
The ruling also stated that
CLCPA requirements will apply
to all future rate increase
requests. When reached, National
Grid referred to their
press release, and did not provide
further comment.
Fossil feuds
State approves rate hike for National Grid
customers to recoup North BK pipeline costs
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