Schumer Joins Local Fight Against Astoria Power Plant Proposal

DSA organized against a fracked-gas plant in Queens, New York. Now Chuck Schumer is getting involved.


Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer on Friday announced his opposition to NRG Energy’s proposed fracked-gas power plant in Astoria, Queens, joining a band of high-profile lawmakers now arrayed against the plant. The once-marginal battle has gained steam, as activists have made western Queens a hotbed of socialist organizing.

“I’ll lend my voice, my clout, and my muscle to stop this dastardly plant,” Schumer said at a press conference on Friday.

Whether to permit the plant will be decided by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s environmental agency. Like another fracked-gas plant in the deindustrialized Hudson Valley town of Newburgh, NRG is seeking permission to be born again as a relatively cleaner facility that would still burn fossil fuels, ahead of tougher emissions limits and rapidly approaching requirements to decarbonize New York’s grid by 2040.

In bigger news for national activists, Schumer committed to keeping gas out of the clean electricity standard, which was part of President Biden’s American Jobs Plan. The CES, which would aim to mostly decarbonize the power grid by 2035, did not make the bipartisan infrastructure framework, but Schumer said that he intends to put in the reconciliation bill that will include education, health care, and climate-related measures.

Read more: https://prospect.org/environment/schumer-joins-local-fight-against-astoria-power-plant-queens-new-york-nrg/
(American Prospect)