NYers Can’t Afford Mamdani’s Climate Dreams

Climate activists from all over are pouring into Gotham for Climate Week. They are abuzz over the likelihood of electing a climate mayor — Zohran Mamdani. Some sipped cocktails at a fundraiser Wednesday night to benefit several climate groups and a newly launched PAC backing Mamdani called New Yorkers for Lower Costs.

That name — New Yorkers for Lower Costs — is a lie. Plain and simple. The massive decarbonization Mamdani advocates will raise energy costs, not lower them, for businesses, homeowners, and renters. Switching to nonpolluting energy sources may be worthwhile, but people deserve the truth about what it will cost them. They’re getting lies and doubletalk from Mamdani.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers are in a frenzy over the steady rise in their utility bills.

Mamdani vows to oppose energy company Consolidated Edison’s latest rate hike request, scheduled for January 2026. If approved, it will make the average residential bill $154 higher than it was in 2020. Ouch.

But Mamdani’s answer is to replace reliance on Con Ed with more state-run power generation — a pie-in-the-sky scheme even less practical than his city-owned grocery stores. Con Ed and other utilities are so tightly regulated by the state that suggestions of price gouging or profiteering are preposterous.

What’s actually making utility rates soar? A big cause is the state’s green energy plans, enacted in the 2019 Climate Act. “The prices that New Yorkers pay for energy will become increasingly unaffordable for millions of residents,” the Manhattan Institute warned in 2022.

New Yorkers are getting ripped off by politicians who promised a “green economic renaissance,” a “claim (that) does not withstand scrutiny,” according to the Manhattan Institute. New York is one of the most expensive states in the U.S. to buy energy, and the gap between what New Yorkers pay and what the rest of the country pays is growing. That discourages business development and sends families looking for a cheaper place to live.

The average residential electric rate is 26.67 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with a national average of 17.47 cents/kWh.

In the last five years, more than 40% of New Yorkers have fallen behind on paying their Con Ed bill, and 23% of households were disconnected at least once. No fridge, no air conditioning, what a mess!

Now, Mamdani is aggressively vowing to enforce a law requiring buildings in New York City over 25,000 square feet to convert from oil or natural gas to electric heat. That conversion will increase the demand for electricity and send electricity prices soaring, according to the Empire Center.

On Sept. 16, Mamdani supporters, led by Pete Sikora, launched a new independent expenditure committee to target condo and co-op owners of color in the Wakefield area of the Bronx and East Flatbush/Canarsie in Brooklyn, telling them that Mamdani’s pro-climate policies, including zealously enforcing the conversion of buildings from fossil fuels to electric heat, would save them money. That’s a flat-out lie.

Local Law 97 mandates that buildings switch to electric heat at their own expense, putting a crushing burden on working-class and middle-class condo and co-op owners.

The frightening truth is that Mamdani is more zealous about greening New York City than helping New Yorkers afford life and raising a family here. “Affordability” is a convenient campaign slogan, but he’s been a longtime zealot about climate change, which he calls the “existential crisis of our time.”

That explains how Mamdani can possibly support congestion pricing, which slams workers living in Brooklyn, Staten Island, or Queens with a $9 toll to get to their midtown Manhattan job. Forget affording lunch.

Or educating your kids. Mamdani went to the tony private Bank Street School as a kid. But most New Yorkers depend on public schools to give their children a chance to succeed. Yet 40% of grammar school kids in New York fail the state’s standardized math and reading tests.

Mamdani couldn’t care less. Instead of any proposals on improving learning, he offers to cede mayoral control of the schools.

What is his priority? Lowering pollution, not raising scores. He wants to renovate 500 schools, switching them to renewable energy sources and replacing asphalt schoolyards with green spaces. Ridiculous. Never mind if Johnny can’t read.

Climate activists are canvassing all over the city for Mamdani. And no doubt New Yorkers are concerned about climate change. But for most people, going green at any cost just doesn’t work. Mamdani is promising to make life affordable again, but his climate policies will scorch the average household. That’s the truth.

Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and founder of SAVENYC @SAVENYC.org. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at CREATORS.COM.

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