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New York is in the midst of another summer with record-breaking heat waves and looming rate hikes. The lowest-income New Yorkers face a choice between deadly heat or skyrocketing electric bills. But one choice they can’t make is whether to face the pollution emitted from power plants known as “peakers,” many of which are located in predominantly Black, brown and low-income communities. Peaker plants crank up during these heat waves and worsen both our air quality and climate.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York Power Authority must act now to ensure a clean, reliable and affordable energy grid by retiring NYPA’s peaker plants. And the way to do that is to rapidly expand renewable energy infrastructure.

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The Build Public Renewables Act authorizes NYPA to develop renewable energy-generating projects like solar and wind power, and it requires NYPA’s peakers to be offline by 2030. However, while NYPA is not short on authority, it........

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