New York progressives charted a path to public power at a Tuesday panel discussion at the Salt City Market. They see the plan as a means to lower utility rates and upgrade infrastructure at a time of increased power generation demand.
The panel featured:
- New York Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha, who represents the 103rd District
- New York City Councilmember Chi Ossé
- Onondaga County Legislator and state assembly candidate Mo Brown
- Onondaga County Legislature candidate Jo Bennett
- Local Democratic Socialists of America representative LouLou DiGiuseppe, who moderated the panel
More than 40 people attended the event, including Syracuse Mayor Sharon Owens, Councilor Chol Majok and state assembly candidate Ian Phillips.
The panel, staffed by Democratic Socialist elected leaders, comes at a time when ratepayers list the cost of utilities as one of the key issues on their mind as they head to the polls. A poll by environmental group Climate Power shows that 40% of voters surveyed ahead of the November midterm elections list utility costs as their most important issue.
Shrestha, who represents parts of the Hudson Valley, said public control of local utilities will help re-orient the priorities of utility companies away from profit generation and steer them toward needed improvements that can improve reliability and affordability.
“The grid is already expensive,” Shrestha told Central Current prior to the event. “We should build it and maintain it at cost.”
Public utilities, Shrestha said, should not be profit-oriented. Shrestha listed the city of Austin, the town of Massena, the village of Solvay and the Canadian province of Ontario as other examples of local municipalities with disparate circumstances that each arrived at a similar public power paradigm.
But compared to those communities, Central New York’s power model lies on the other end of the power ownership spectrum. National Grid, the utility company that covers most of Onondaga County and the rest of the region, serves approximately 1.7 million electricity customers and approximately 600,000 natural gas customers across upstate New York.
“National Grid’s parent company is a company in the United Kingdom,” Ossé said. “They don’t give an F about what folks in Syracuse are dealing with in the middle of the winter.”
‘They didn’t feel like they were accountable to me’
Shrestha proposed a bill in 2024 to trigger public control of the Central Hudson utility corporation. The bill, titled Hudson Valley Public Authority Act, would create a publicly-owned and democratically-controlled power authority to replace Central Hudson, one of the smallest corporate utility companies in New York.
A potential “Hudson Valley Public Authority” would shift its priorities toward a service-first model rather than being motivated by profits, providing low rates, reliable service, simpler billing, clean energy, community benefits, strong labor protections and environmental justice, Shrestha said.
Adherence to these goals, Shrestha said, will be left to a board of democratically elected community members who can bring diverse backgrounds and considerations to their decision making and who would have oversight on the public utility’s board.
Ossé, who represents parts of Brooklyn on the New York City Council, said this type of democratic control would address issues he has faced in his district. He recounted an instance in which a constituent needed power restored to their home. Ossé said he found the company’s response to the issue insufficient.
“They didn’t feel like they were accountable to me, and they most certainly didn’t feel like they were accountable to my constituents,” he noted.
To finance the Hudson Valley Public Authority transition, the bill allows the public sector to buy out Central Hudson through tax-exempt bonds if it can demonstrate that the takeover would be a cost saving measure for ratepayers every month. Shrestha’s bill could task the new public authority to keep bills at 6% or less of customers’ monthly incomes.
An estimate from 2024 from the Center for Public Enterprise, cited in articles by the Albany Times-Union and New York Focus, shows that the takeover of Central Hudson would cost between $560 million to $1.2 billion or more.
Creating the Hudson Valley Public Authority, Shrestha hopes, could create a movement in places like Onondaga County to control the costs of utilities.
“We have a very aging, very bloated infrastructure,” Shrestha said. “We are looking at this as a piece in hopefully a domino effect where we can, with our success, expand the possibilities of what can be done.”
As other lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul ponder strategies to improve the electric grid’s infrastructure, expand energy generation through renewables and nuclear energy, and move away from fossil fuels, Shrestha said handing the public control over that transition will be key.
“The grid is not in the shape to provide the reliability we need right now,” Shrestha said. “The only way we can have a just transition is when we say that energy is a public good.”
Organizing is growing to meet a widespread grievance
State Sen. Rachel May, who represents the 48th District was not present at the Tuesday panel, but Shrestha said she is collaborating with May on legislation that would mandate the state build publicly owned renewable energy arrays that generate 15 gigawatts by 2030. Elected leaders say 1 gigawatt of energy is enough to power roughly 750,000 homes.
While progressives are leading the push for public power, Shrestha said that Republican voters have attended outreach sessions and also griped about the high costs of utilities they are paying.
Shrestha said that hasn’t necessarily translated to buy-in from Republican elected officials, but pointed to conservative-led efforts in the past to defend or achieve public power to argue that the issue is not inherently political and has in the past enjoyed bipartisan support. Former President Barack Obama tried for years to privatize the public-owned Tennessee Valley Authority but ultimately failed after encountering sustained opposition from Southern Republicans.
Despite limited current support from Republicans in New York, Shrestha and Ossé believe that sustained advocacy and grassroots organizing around public power can build inroads with voters of every stripe who are facing the same high energy costs.
“I see an energy bill as something that’s not blue or red. It’s something that’s green, and everyone’s wallet is hurting under this administration,” Ossé said, referring to President Donald Trump’s administration.
Ossé believes that if New York can achieve public power statewide, it could serve as a model for the rest of the nation. But before New York progressives can push public power to the nation, they’ll have to win over the state. To do that, Ossé said organizing at the lowest levels of government is essential. If constituents in districts across the state communicate their support for public power to their representatives, Ossé said, it will be easier for Shrestha and other public power advocates to build a coalition of lawmakers supportive of public power.
“Traveling across the state and sharing what public power is, gaining public support for an issue that we see, some people may feel complex, and giving them the tools that they’ll need to organize their neighbors,” Ossé said. “We’ve been across the state at this point, from Buffalo to Hudson to Kingston to Rochester to Syracuse, and it’s a popular issue.”
Asked whether Hochul has indicated any position on public power, Shrestha said public power advocates are pursuing a “bottom-up” strategy focused on building a solid base of support for the initiative before engaging the governor.
Shrestha quoted a lawyer who led the town of Massena’s transition to public power — which included a carve out of a part of National Grid — who described “enduring public commitment” as the most important element of Massena’s success in taking control of its own power.
Shrestha believes that advice is paramount to winning public power from New York City to Buffalo and beyond.
“It’s precisely because the fight is tough that you have to start organizing now, right? These are not easy fights to win, so you need to give yourself time to build the support,” Shrestha said.
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