Supporters of the NY Heat Act say it’s a solution to New Yorkers’ rising energy bills. The legislation would curb the expansion of gas infrastructure and stop utility customers from picking up the hefty tab.

“Our rent is too damn high in the first place and our utility bill shouldn’t be an additional burden either,” Hennessy Garcia told a crowd of protestors in front of utility company Con Edison’s Manhattan headquarters last Friday.

The 27-year-old CUNY student, who also works full time, said the Con Edison utility bill she shares with roommates went from an average of $80 to $90 dollars per month last winter to around $130 this season.

Garcia isn’t alone. One in four New York residents pay more than 6 percent of their annual income on electricity, natural gas, and delivered fossil fuels used for heating and cooling, according to a report by environmental coalition NY Renews and the think tank Switchbox.

Con Ed customers have seen their heating bill go up an average of $50 a month since 2022, according to an analysis by environmental group Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE). For those who use National Grid in New York City, monthly heating bills are set to increase more than $60 between 2023 and 2026.

These rate hikes are happening in large part to pay for infrastructure build outs that utility companies say are necessary to keep gas flowing in a safe and reliable way, especially in the colder months when demand for heating is highest.

But environmentalists warn that because state and local mandates have put New York on a long term path to phase out fossil fuels, investing in infrastructure that will last for decades only keeps customers paying for an outdated system. To stop gas customers from footing the bill for these expansions, they propose the NY Heat Act, a bill that cuts back on gas infrastructure buildout across the state.

Last fall, National Grid customers saw a massive rate hike approved to pay for $5 billion in infrastructure projects. And earlier this month, Con Edison proposed rising rates to fund almost $952 million in gas capital investments starting in 2026. 

“Our proposed investment plan will support critical work and investments in reliability, resiliency and clean energy infrastructure to meet the high expectations of our customers, who depend on us to deliver the most reliable electric service in the nation,” Matthew Ketschke, president of Con Edison said in a press release.

National Grid also assured that its rate hikes were necessary, and said the company would do its best to alleviate the burden on consumers.

“We understand that our customers are feeling the pain of inflation in their everyday expenses, and we are taking action to control costs while maintaining safe and reliable service,” a National Grid spokesperson said in an email. 

But gas companies profit from the rate of return they get from making these investments, lawmakers point out, while customers are stuck paying them back via their monthly bills over the course of several years. 

“It’s a revenue generator for the utility companies. They make money by putting more pipes in the ground. The dirty little secret is, we, the rate payers are paying for all this unnecessary buildout,” said State Sen. Liz Krueger, sponsor of the NY Heat Act. 

The NY Heat promise

Krueger and several members of the environmental community say NY Heat is the solution to New Yorkers’ rising utility bills. The legislation would curb the expansion of gas infrastructure and stop utility customers from picking up the hefty tab.

It does that by getting rid of the “100-foot rule”—a legal requirement that utility companies provide gas service at no charge to anyone who wants it and lives within 100 feet of an existing line. While the new customer doesn’t pay for the hookup, existing customers foot the cost to lay down new pipes, which gets baked into their utility bills. 

That adds up to more than $200 million a year, according to Jessica Azulay, program director of AGREE. Con Edison’s recent rate hike alone would pour nearly $72 million in 2026 to fund new customer connections under the rule, Azulay added.

By cutting back on that expansion, supporters claim the legislation will save customers an average of $136 on their bills every month.

“It’s absolutely necessary for states like New York to continue to lead on climate action and to address energy affordability. NY Heat does both,” Azulay said.

While environmental groups have been pushing for the bill’s passage over the past three years, it failed to make it across the finish line in the last legislative session, when it passed the Senate but failed to earn the Assembly’s seal of approval.

Industry groups mounted strong opposition to the bill last year, ultimately swaying lawmakers in the Assembly to vote against it. The opposition campaign included ads on social media championed by New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, a coalition that advocates for increased access to natural gas.

“The NY Heat Act would hurt you and your family by raising your energy costs, eliminating good paying jobs and forcing you to pay to electrify your home,” one ad on Facebook said.

Those who oppose the bill argue New York isn’t ready to phase out gas infrastructure, since only 29 percent of the state’s electricity is currently powered by clean energy. They say consumers could be left in the lurch if we pull the plug on gas expansions.

It would “raise rates, cost jobs and eliminate consumer energy choice in NY,” the association reiterated during a press conference alongside several Republican state senators who stood against the bill.

But a new version of the legislation reintroduced this year addresses concerns raised by assemblymembers last year, its sponsors say. 

Those concerns centered around a key provision in the bill that amends utility companies’ obligation to serve gas to any customers who request it under the state’s public service law. Instead of the state obligating utility companies to just serve gas, NY Heat tweaks the language in the law, opening it up to clean sources of energy as well. 

Those who voted against the bill worry that not enough renewable energy is feeding into the power grid right now to move entire neighborhoods off gas and usher them into using renewable energy instead. 

The revamped version of NY Heat, however, promises to make sure no one is being left in the lurch. 

“This year’s bill contains more explicit protections for existing gas customers,” said Justin Flagg, a spokesperson at Sen. Krueger’s office. In practice, that means the obligation to serve gas will remain in place for existing customers except in specific circumstances where a neighborhood, or a group of customers, has been earmarked for upgrading to alternative options, Flagg said. 

Now, advocates say it will be up to the Assembly again this year to finally get the bill across the finish line this legislative session, which ends in June.

“We’re really looking to the Assembly to deliver this year,” said Shiv Soin, a member of the NY Renews coalition and executive director of the non-profit TREEage.

“NY Heat is a really clear solution to both the affordability crisis that the governor is posing as the primary concern of her agenda, and also in response to these energy price increases that are happening again,” Soin said.

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