Thank NY Democrats insane climate crusade for Con Eds huge rate hikes

Gov.Kathy Hochul’s pricey green fantasies are running smack into her “affordability” agenda — with the latest hit coming from steep Con Ed rate hikes.The utility wants the state to let it jack up electric bills 11.4% on average and gas bills 13.3%, bringing total bills to $500 a month.

Ouch.Those jumps follow years of similarly painful rate jumps, and it’s largely thanks to the state’s nonsensical crusade against fossil fuels in the name of holding down global temps.Hochul has only amped up the drive begun by Gov.Andrew Cuomo, an all-out war on oil and gas that includes nixing new pipelines; building costly windmills, charging stations and other infrastructure; charging energy companies for past emissions; outlawing new gas appliances (like stoves) and home heating and on and on and on.Plus, Cuomo drove the Indian Point nuclear plant to close — eliminating a huge source of reliable, 100%-clean electricity.Electric-stove, -heat and -car mandates up the demand for juice, even as blocking new fossil-fuel power plants restricts the supply.And the massive new green-energy infrastructure the “climate” plan demands isn’t cheap, either: Windmills (especially offshore) and solar plants cost plenty, and require new transmission lines and electric-storage facilities that rely on technology that isn’t even developed yet.Yet most of those costs get dumped on utilities, which have no choice but to pass them along to customers.The utterly predictable result: Consumers get socked.And it’s only beginning.

As the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin reported last year, Albany’s nearly $300 billion price tag for its 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act could actually turn out to be as much as $1 trillion.Who does Hochul think will pay for that? Mexico?On top of all that, property taxes account for 25% of Con Ed’s costs — also passed along to you-know-who.Yet Hochul’s entire anti-warming efforts won’t even lower the Earth’s temperature by...