BPU Addresses Climate Pledge Proposal

Dave Leathers, Board of Public Utilities general manager, presented the BPU's perspective of the city administration's Climate Smart Communities pledge to City Council members Monday, answering questions regarding potential impacts to the city's utility company.

Leathers described the Climate Smart Communities pledge as a municipal effort, contrasting the city administration and City Council's role in leading the discussion regarding the Climate Smart Communities pledge and the BPU's focus on the clean energy standards in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

"Those are state mandates and state laws that are focused on significant changes in the New York state economy related to greenhouse gas emissions and green energy, as well as transportation, buildings, agriculture, waste and industry," he said. "That really is where all of our efforts and all of our focus are. In my view of this pledge for council, is it's up to you and the administration related to any items you would like to pursue under the 'ala carte menu' of everything that could be done should you take that pledge and decide to go forward."

While Leathers acknowledged the city's need to establish a coordinator and a task force if the city adopts the Climate Smart Communities pledge, he said the city would be able to decide each year how many items on the Climate Smart Communities list to address.

"It depends on what the priority is compared to all the other workload you have," he said. "It depends on how aggressive you want to try to implement with the resources you have, but I think that just approving a resolution to take the pledge, I don't see it as some huge significant step, and I definitely don't see it as anything that's going to impact the BPU operation."

From Leather's perspective, the Climate Smart Communities pledge would not commit the city to anything hard. He added that if the City Council chooses to adopt the pledge, the council could rescind the resolution for whatever reason the following year.

Leathers said the Climate Smart Communities program would present the city administration and the City Council with many items that could be discussed and explored in coordination with the BPU.

"There are items in the list of potential tasks that the BPU staff would be happy to be involved in and would be supportive," he said. "The program is built on it being a municipal-led effort, and in this case, a city-led effort, and that's really what most of the work entails."

According to Leathers, the proposed program has been around for a while. As a result, he indicated that there are many grant programs that award municipalities extra points on grant applications for being a Climate Smart Community.

While Leathers said there are "probably more reasons" currently to adopt the pledge for grant purposes than in the past, he suggested that the Climate Smart Communities pledge is not an urgent item for the City Council to consider or implement.

"If you have other items on your list, whatever staff workload is, from an outsider looking in, I don't have those answers," he said. "I think it's up to you where you see that in the current priority list with everything else that council and the administration and the staff are dealing with, because I know there's a lot going on."

Asked by City Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large, if it would hurt either the BPU or the city financially if the pledge was not approved by the City Council, Leathers indicated that it would most likely not financially hurt either the city or the BPU based on current grant applications; however, he said that could change in the future. Leathers added that if the City Council chooses to approve the adoption of the Climate Smart Communities pledge, the council would not be required to adopt the resolution exactly as it was presented by the city administration.

"I think the only thing that needs to be in there is the resolved section," he said.

Following his presentation on the BPU's perspective of the Climate Smart Communities pledge, City Councilman William Reynolds suggested that the city has already completed or is already doing a "bunch" of the tasks included as part of the Climate Smart Communities program.

"I think we're doing a heck of a great job at being a Climate Smart Community already," he said. "On the four pages of items that apply to the initiative, we're doing a gang of them already. Like you said, if we find something on this list that we think should be a priority, you'd be willing or the BPU would be willing to coordinate with us and the administration on any of those projects."

City Council President Anthony Dolce, R-Ward II, explained that one of the council's main concerns has been whether the Climate Smart Communities pledge would lock the city into anything in the future. Asked whether that would be an issue with the Climate Smart Communities pledge, Leathers said it would not lock the city into anything.

"I think that's a good point," Leathers said. "From some of what I've seen in discussion, one of the things was stop and take a break and see how this impacts the BPU and what the BBB thinks. I wouldn't make this out to be something more than it really is. You are passing a resolution to take this pledge that you intend to work on some, a few or many of these items. I don't think it's too much more than that."

Leathers added that there are a "lot more" standards being passed down from the state level that are far more impactful to the BPU's operations than the City Council's consideration of the Climate Smart Community's pledge.