Establishes that electric generating facilities that use biomass for more than 50% of its annual heat input shall not be required to obtain carbon dioxide allowances for carbon dioxide emissions attributable to the burning of biomass under the carbon dioxide budget trading program.
S T A T E O F N E W Y O R K
________________________________________________________________________
6214
2017-2018 Regular Sessions
I N A S S E M B L Y
February 27, 2017
___________
Introduced by M. of A. MOYA -- read once and referred to the Committee
on Energy
AN ACT to amend the public service law, the public authorities law, and
the environmental conservation law, in relation to biomass-fired elec-
tric generating facilities subject to the regional greenhouse gas
initiative and the CO2 budget trading program
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM-
BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. Legislative intent. The legislature hereby finds and
declares that it is in the economic and environmental interests of the
citizens of the state of New York to support and encourage renewable
energy generation through the conversion of coal-fired electric generat-
ing facilities to biomass-fired facilities. The combustion of biomass
offers a sustainable and manageable carbon lifecycle since the materials
included in biomass generally absorb atmospheric carbon during their
lifecycle and then return it to the atmosphere during combustion. This
process mimics the natural lifecycle of plant life that can fall to the
forest floor, decompose and return its carbon to the atmosphere.
The legislature further finds and declares that biomass production
facilities support and sustain jobs, particularly in upstate New York,
where more than four thousand people are employed directly or indirectly
by the industry. In fact, many of the largest and most successful biom-
ass facilities are located in parts of New York state that have high
unemployment and are in desperate need of economic development. New York
state also possesses an abundance of biomass fuel due to the large
amount of untapped forest and agricultural land where biomass fuel can
be collected. Biomass is the equivalent of solar energy stored in organ-
ic matter and is environmentally friendly while costing around one third
of the cost of fossil fuels.
As such, to the extent that operators of electric generating facili-
ties in New York state are willing to convert formerly coal-fired facil-
ities (boilers, combustion turbines, or combined cycle systems) to
instead be fueled by biomass, state policy should encourage and support
such conversions rather than discourage them. While new biomass-fired
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