PUSH Buffalo protest targets companies that opposed climate change bill (2024)

Protesters on Tuesday rode around the Buffalo area in a school bus, demanding that several well-known Western New York businesses walk back their opposition to legislation meant to transition new buildings away from fossil fuels.

People United for Sustainable Housing, or PUSH Buffalo, led the protests Tuesday at Tops Markets on Niagara Street, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, and Independent Health and Evans Bank in Williamsville.

“What do we want? Climate justice,” the organizers chanted at each stop, holding picket signs emblazoned with “Don’t sell out to National Fuel.”

The protests were calling attention to a memo signed by the four businesses that opposed the New York Home Energy Affordable Transition Act, or HEAT Act. The bill failed to pass after it stalled in the Assembly earlier this year.

At each stop, PUSH Buffalo members delivered letters that requested the entities drop their opposition to the HEAT Act and then call on legislators to pass it in 2025.

Independent Health responds

Targets of the protests defended their opposition to the HEAT Act in responses to questions from The Buffalo News.

“We are not opposed to adopting other cleaner energy sources,” Frank Sava, Independent Health’s director of corporate communications, wrote in an email to The News.

Independent Health’s opposition came from concern about energy reliability, Sava wrote.

“The transition needs to be done in a way that provides sufficient energy to all citizens and businesses throughout the state,” Sava wrote.

It is likely the HEAT Act failed to pass largely because of lobbying by National Fuel Gas, a gas company based in Williamsville, said the Rev. Majadi Baruti, PUSH Buffalo’s climate justice organizer.

“National Fuel Gas here in Western New York. They’re a fracking company, and so they’re doing everything to keep us on this fracked gas and to make us pay more and more for it,” Baruti said. “By fighting this law, they’re fighting climate justice. They’re fighting the environmental movement. They’re contributing to the climate crisis.”

Twenty-six Western New York entities signed the May letter opposing the HEAT Act, ranging from local labor unions to tourism agency Visit Buffalo Niagara, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, manufacturers, a doctor’s office, and construction and insurance companies.

HEAT Act explained

The HEAT Act would have removed a requirement for utilities to automatically provide gas to new customers who asked for it and taper the expansion of gas infrastructure. Under state law, gas companies must provide free gas hookups to new customers within 100 feet of a pipeline, and existing ratepayers subsidize the work.

That 100-foot rule, “is, in essence, a de facto incentive to continue the installation and use of natural gas in the state,” Public Service Commission Chair Rory Christian said during a February 2023 legislative budget hearing. “And that does appear to not line up perfectly with the ongoing policy initiative of the CLCPA.”

The CLCPA, or Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, was signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2019. The law sets goals for the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions and boost renewable sources of energy.

The HEAT Act was born out of that 2019 law. By removing the requirements and subsidies supporting the expansion of the gas infrastructure in New York, the HEAT Act could have helped curb emissions and cut costs for ratepayers, according to supporters of the bill.

“We are in a race against time,” Liz Krueger, a Democratic senator sponsoring the bill, told the New York Times. “Not because of the mandates of our legislation, but because of the reality that the world is in crisis and at risk of self-destruction.”

But those opposed to the bill said it would “price residents out of our state, and discourage business growth and investment in our community” because of costs associated with transitioning from gas to all-electric, according to the May letter sent to Hochul and the State Legislature.

Baruti said it is important to keep in mind that the HEAT Act wouldn’t require anyone to transition to electric systems.

“If the HEAT Act is passed, that would allow for people if they want to stay on the gas system, they could do that,” Baruti said.

Additionally, the state doesn’t have the grid capacity for the buildout needed to reach its renewable energy goals, the opponents to the HEAT Act said in their letter.

“Building this capacity is a lofty, time-consuming pursuit, and New York cannot afford to take other energy sources offline until this buildout is complete,” the May letter said.

This claim comes with a large caveat, Baruti said.

“If they keep fighting the law, the climate law from being fulfilled and all of the money that could come with it, then of course the system can’t be built out, and the current system can’t support it,” he said. “So part of what they say is true, but they’re putting a clever spin on it.”

Baruti also pointed out that National Fuel has proposed a monthly bill increase for ratepayers of $11.31, or 13.7%, according to its pending case with the Department of Public Service.

National Fuel donations

Gov. Hochul had proposed a version of the HEAT Act in January, and the State Senate voted to approve it in March.

However, the Assembly did not allow the HEAT Act to pass through to the final state budget, even though the Assembly had a supermajority of Democrats, with most supporting the bill.

The only Assembly member from Western New York who signed on as a co-sponsor of the HEAT Act was Jon Rivera. Others, including Majority Leader Crystal People-Stokes, who represents much of Buffalo’s East Side and downtown, did not sign on to the bill in support.

The lack of support for the HEAT Act was unique to Western New York, and could be tied to National Fuel Gas’ influence in the area, according to the advocacy organization Spring Street Climate Fund.

Western New York Assembly members, including Democrats People-Stokes, Bill Conrad and Karen McMahon, have received thousands of dollars in donations from the National Fuel Gas political action committee in recent years, according to campaign finance records on the New York State Board of Elections website.

People-Stokes said in a phone call Tuesday that she doesn’t make decisions based on the money in her campaign account and “resents anyone who questions her character based on donations in her campaign account.” She added that she wanted more conversation around future proposals of the HEAT Act because “not everyone was in concurrence with the model of how it was being proposed” this year.

Why they’re opposed

National Fuel spokesperson Karen Merkel said in an emailed statement to The News on Tuesday that the company opposed the HEAT Act because it seemed like the bill would have changed “longstanding energy laws in ways that are not known or understood by our customers.”

“National Fuel is in favor of reducing emissions in New York in a way that’s reasonable and preserves the affordability and reliability of the energy system,” Merkel wrote. “Rather than going ‘all in’ on electrification, we believe an ‘all of the above’ emissions reduction strategy makes more sense.”

NFTA Public Information Officer Kelly Khatib said the agency takes “a tremendous amount of pride in our strong environmental stance.”

“While NFTA supports the goal of this legislation, it is reasonable to assume that the timetable and the mechanisms set forth would have unintended negative impacts on our operations that we were obligated to disclose,” Khatib wrote in an email to The News. “The NFTA leads all transit agencies in the state in the adoption of electric buses, and Metro Rail runs on Niagara hydropower. We are so far ahead of our peers in the conversion to zero-emission transportation alternatives, that initiatives which would destabilize the electric grid and lead to brownouts and blackouts would have very serious problems for Metro Rail, our state-leading electric bus operation, and the customers we serve.”

Kathy Sautter, a spokesperson for Tops, said the company is still committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions through powering stores with solar energy.

“With more than half our stores participating in solar programs, our store network currently relies on a mix of energy sources, including electricity, natural gas and renewable resources,” Sautter wrote in an email to The Buffalo News on Tuesday. “We believe it’s important to continue working collaboratively with the business community, organized labor, community leaders and state officials to identify solutions that increase sustainability and contribute to economic vitality.”