March 14, 2011 Speaker Sheldon Silver New York State Assembly Room 932 Legislative Office Building Albany, New York 12248 Dear Speaker Silver: We , the undersigned business and trade associations, are writing today to express our collective support for “Recharge NY,” S.3164 (Maziarz)/A.5021 (Cahi ll), and to urge you to pass t his legislation no w. This program provides critical low cost power benefits to hundreds of manufacturers and other energy intensive businesses across the state, will support retention of over 300,000 high paying jobs, and will support new capital investment and new job growth. On March 8, 2011, the Senate version passed unanimously. We now respectfully ask the Assembly to take final action to approve this legislation. We have had extensive discussions with Assembly members and staff about Recharge New York. Based on these discussions, we believe that there is broad, bipartisan support for the key elements of this legislation. These include: - A new, permanent program to replace the Power for Jobs and Economic Development Power programs that will provide predictability and certainty for program participants, - A 910 MW program that will give the state more economic development power resources than are available under expiring programs and open the program to new applicants for the first time in six years, - Allocation-based power benefits and long-term contracts of up to seven years that will provide competitive, stable electric power prices to energy intensive businesses, - Eligibility criteria that assure significant, long-term economic return to the state, including the number and value (wages and benefits) of jobs created and retained, investments in capital equipment and energy efficiency, the significance of energy costs to a business’ competitiveness, and the local economic significance of the facility. While this bill redeploys current NYPA hydropower from residential to economic development uses, it includes an initial 3 year, $100 million per year mitigation fund to offset any adverse impact on ratepayers. This, combined with significant othe r state resources dedicated to residential energy efficiency, will provide upstate ratepayers with effective, long term cost mitigation. The bill will result in an increase in economic development power, available to business statewide, and will make power available to new applicants for the first time in six years. It will encourage new private sector capital investment, and help retain and grow good paying jobs statewide, thereby resulting in substantial economic returns to the state.
