The big Williamsburg power plant proposal is dead, right? Well, it's dead, but only kinda' sorta' because the Dracula of Brooklyn Proposals has yet to get the definitive stake shoved through its heart. In other words, there are always appeals that can be filed. One process was started today, but what's riveting is the wording in the press release from TransGas, which reads a little bit like what would have happened if an angry guy from the Communist Party USA had run a PR writing workshop for corporate execs in 1985. The release uses phrases like "zeal to appease" former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff," "suicide mission to sacrifice" the future, charges of pandering to "well-heeled, largely white" gentrifiers and more. In that sense, it is one of the most superb press releases from a business on a dry topic we have seen in years.
Here's a little bit of the release, which is a classic:
On Friday, April 18 TransGas Energy Systems LLC will petition the NYS Siting Board to reverse its March 21, 2008 decision denying TransGas’ application for the permit required to build its state-of-the-art, clean, environmentally positive cogeneration plant in Greenpoint Brooklyn. In its zeal to appease former Deputy Mayor Doctoroff and the newly gentrified community of Greenpoint, the Siting Board, guided by the staff of the Department of Public Service, gutted the State’s authority over the licensing of electric generating plants and transmission facilities. The Siting Board opted to defer to local governments on whether and where to build new electric infrastructure. The decision to mollify a well-heeled, largely white, professional neighborhood – who simply did not want to have a new power plant in their backyard, however clean it might be – confirms what many observers have come to conclude: that New York State is on a suicide mission to sacrifice the State’s future in order to cater to NIMBY’s.
In pandering to a single community, not only did the Siting Board diminish its own authority, but it deprived the rest of the City and metropolitan region of the opportunity to eliminate more than 4,300 tons per year of SOx and more than 2,400 tons per year of NOx from the air they breath, and deprived the State of the opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than three million tons per year. The Siting Board’s decision also deprived the City of cheaper energy, reduced oil use and increased energy reliability. Putting one neighborhood’s desire for a so-called “pristine” waterfront ahead of the interests of the rest of the City and State was exactly what the State Legislature created the Siting Board to prevent....TransGas Energy will appeal the Siting Board’s decision, but as a first step it must file an application for “rehearing.” The Siting Board will then have the chance to correct its legal errors and policy mistakes. If New York State has any chance of taking control of its energy future it will have to start making hard choices and be willing to make some citizens unhappy.
There's more, but that captures the flavor rather nicely.
· Burg's Gas Pains Finally Cured: Power Plant is Really Dead [Curbed]
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