Republicans and Democrats are like two ships passing in the night when it comes to New York’s energy policy. Both ships are in shallow water with a rocky bottom.

In this analogy, that makes the state Independent System Operator a lighthouse trying to illuminate the darkness to allow the ships to pass safely to port. Unfortunately, both ships’ captains have blinders on – and we’re headed for a crash.

The ISO said last week that electric grid reliability for the summer months is among the lowest on record, with 34,615 megawatts of power resources available to meet forecasted peak demand of 31,578 MW. As established by the New York State Reliability Council, under normal system conditions, the ISO is required to maintain 2,620 MW from the available resources in reserves. That leaves the reliability margin for this summer at a measly 417 megawatts, the lowest in recent history.

In other words, get ready for a few “conserve power” requests during the dog days of summer.

This isn’t a new warning. The ISO has been warning of exactly this citation for three years. But Republicans and Democrats are each stuck in their respective ships when it comes to energy policy. Democrats refuse to budge on at least delaying the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act looming deadlines to electrify the power grid – something that can’t be done at a cost the public can manage under the timeframe Democrats laid out in 2019. They choose instead to blame President Donald Trump for pushing back on offshore wind projects as the reason the state can’t meet the CLCPA, Never mind that the CLCPA wasn’t on track to be met before Trump took office the second time or that power costs have been on an inexorable climb since the Obama administration. Legislative Democrats not only don’t want to delay the CLCPA, they blame existing fossil fuel use for high costs and grid reliability issues even though Democrats have constrained fossil fuel supplies by delaying natural gas pipelines and development of nuclear power which, if pursued over the past two decades, would have helped keep prices in check now.

As for Republicans, Trump’s foreign policy is leading to higher prices on energy. There is no question about it. We all know that wind and solar power won’t magically restore reliability to the electric grid. We all know that without federal subsidies wind and solar projects are more expensive than fossil fuels. But this fight will be won in moderation, and part of moderation is admitting that Trump is part of the state’s power problem.

Two things can be true at the same time. Both Trump and the CLCPA are driving high electricity costs. We need fossil fuel availability now and an electrified power grid in the future as technology is affordable enough to stand on its own two feet. But listening to legislative debates with the same old rhetoric is getting old – as are the state’s incredibly high power prices.