Power Plant Emissions While federal and state governments set emissions control policies and our State makes decisions on the siting of power plants, local government can promote energy conservation and reduce air pollution. With respect to air quality, Nassau County, along with the rest of the New York metropolitan region, qualifies as a non-attainment zone under the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA’s”) new particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone standards. The EPA has classified fine particulate emissions as “likely carcinogens” and linked them to a higher incidence of asthma and other lung ailments. Though new EPA guidelines will mandate reduced emissions from many mobile sources of pollution in future years, the County and municipalities should act promptly to reduce diesel emissions from government fleets and encourage private fleets to do the same. Similarly, the government should play a leading role by making its facilities and operations energy-efficient and by establishing policies that encourage the private sector to follow suit. This is especially important given that average household electricity consumption on Long Island increased 15 percent over the past six years.
Solution
The League urges the County and municipalities to:
- Collaborate with local and regional governments, authorities and private energy providers to create and implement comprehensive energy plans for Suffolk County and Long Island. These plans should include demand projections, demand-side management strategies, analysis of transmission systems, alternate proposals, and community feedback with emphasis on clean and efficient generation.
- Convert non-emergency government operated or controlled fleets to alternative fuel vehicles and prohibit non-essential SUV purchases.
- Set a cap of 500 parts per million for the allowable level of sulfur in home heating fuel for 2005 and 2006 and 15 ppm thereafter.
- Mandate that government agencies and departments make energy-efficient purchasing decisions (model legislation on New York City's Local Law # 30 of 2003).
- Commit to build all new government construction and major renovation projects to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ("LEED") standards (model legislation on New York City's Local Law # 86-2005).
- Promote the use of renewable sources of power locally, in both the public and private sectors (e.g. opt into Long Island Power Authority's ("LIPA's") Green Choice Program, which is available to municipalities, businesses and consumers, or convert governmental facilities to wind, solar, and/or geothermal-generated electricity).
- Implement the recently passed bills requiring that the County purchase an increasing percentage of its energy from renewable sources.
- Work to ensure that proposed energy facilities such as Broadwater, the Long Island offshore wind project, and the Caithness project receive rigorous environmental review.
- Sign on to the Clean Energy Leadership Task Force to learn about clean energy alternatives and the myriad federal, state, power authority and utility programs that provide funding and offer technical expertise.
- Create a "Green Parks" program to make park operations environmentally efficient and less polluting. (Review and utilize the lessons learned from the County's Blydenburgh Park pilot project and LIPA's Final Report.)
- Require all construction vehicles used on government construction projects to use ultra-low sulfur fuel and install the best-available technology for particulate emission filtering (model legislation on New York City's Local Law 77 of 2003 and the corresponding regulations).
- Require government agencies and departments, and certain contractors, to purchase recycled or synthetic motor oil (model legislation on New York City's Executive Order #33).
- Participate in any federal-state Liquefied Natural Gas Forums that occur pursuant to the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
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