@article{Fields_2020, title={Will Section 94-C Enable Renewable Energy Project Siting and Help New York State Achieve Its Energy Targets?}, volume={46}, url={https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/cjel/article/view/7916}, DOI={10.7916/cjel.v46i1.7916}, abstractNote={<p style="text-align: justify;">Through the enactment of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), New York State (NYS) has adopted highly ambitious targets to address climate change. Achieving these targets will require a transformation of NYS’s electricity generation system, including a massive buildout of new large-scale wind and solar power projects. The success of this endeavor will depend on the ability of new projects to be efficiently sited through a streamlined process. This Note argues that the new framework adopted under Section 94-C of Article 6 of the New York Executive Law (Section 94-C) should enable this transformation. However, this is highly contingent upon whether the newly-created Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) promulgates and enforces regulations and standards with the explicit intent of meeting the CLCPA targets.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">This Note examines how Section 94-C is an improvement from earlier siting regimes in NYS, which emphasized a time-intensive and comprehensive approval process primarily tailored to the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of fossil-fuel power projects. This Note explains how Section 94-C sought to bridge the historical disconnect between old siting statutes with NYS’s more recent priorities for renewable energy adoption and addressing climate change. This Note demonstrates how Section 94-C can bypass massive delays, provided that ORES establishes more reasonable and predictable substantive standards, as well as reduces the complexity and extent of procedural requirements for developers.</p>}, number={1}, journal={Columbia Journal of Environmental Law}, author={Fields, Alexander}, year={2020}, month={Dec.} }