James E. Hanley

Banning natural-gas hookups in new buildings requires the use of heat pumps.

But heat pumps are not sufficient to keep homes warm in the colder parts of the state, they also add to the demand for electricity — because, unlike natural-gas furnaces, it takes electricity to run heat pumps. 

But the supply of electricity in New York is not expected to keep up with growing demand over the next two decades, and the state plans to replace reliable natural-gas power plants with unreliable wind and solar.

Add that up and it means more strain on the electrical system and an increase in the risk of blackouts and loss of heat in the depths of winter. 

To avoid catastrophe, the state may be forced to keep natural-gas power plants operating — but that means an increase in heat pumps will cause a small increase in greenhouse-gas emissions because it’s less efficient to burn natural gas to create electricity than it is to burn it directly in the home for heat.

The long-term goal is to eliminate all natural gas use in the state, whether for home use or for generating electricity. 

How much this will cost New Yorkers remains unexamined, but it’s such a minuscule portion of global greenhouse gas emissions that it will have no measurable effect on climate change.

How much New Yorkers are willing to pay for policies that are primarily symbolic remains to be seen. 

By Eva Moskowitz

Despite ever-growing demand for charter schools, state law arbitrarily limits their number.

Albany has now seen fit to allow a measly 14 additional charters to open in New York City, but not in any school district where more than 55% of the children already attend charters. 

Charter enrollment has reached this level in only one area: Harlem.

Thus, for all practical purposes, we might call Albany’s legislation the “no more Harlems” bill. 

What is happening in Harlem that is so horrifying that Albany wants to prevent it from ever happening again?

Student achievement is increasing dramatically, an idea that strikes terror in the hearts of charter school opponents such as the teachers unions, who have long argued that charters just cherry-pick the best students and harm district schools in the process.

Harlem disproves both of these claims. 

In 2006, the year I opened up the first Success Academy Charter School, only 6% of Harlem’s public school students attended charter schools, and student achievement lagged far behind state averages: by 25 points in math and 22 points in reading.

Now charter-school enrollment has grown to 59% and, as a result, the achievement gap in Harlem has virtually disappeared.

It is just 2 points in reading and 3 points in math. 

This improvement was primarily driven by Harlem’s charter schools, which beat the statewide averages by 10 points in math and 9 points in reading.

However, even at Harlem’s district schools — which supposedly should be worse because charters cherry-picked all the best students — student performance increased relative to statewide average by three points in math and six points in reading. 

These results raise an awkward question for Albany: If the proliferation of charter schools can have such a dramatic positive impact on academic achievement in a community such as Harlem, why does Albany insist on limiting the number of charter schools that can open?

Here’s a hint: It has nothing to do with student achievement and everything to do with campaign contributions. 

By Nicole Gelinas

Gov. Hochul’s $229 billion budget deal with the Legislature is a mess.

Somehow, lawmakers added $2 billion in spending to the governor’s proposal, meaning spending is 30% higher than it was before COVID. 

A lot went wrong — but one of the biggest failures is that Hochul is waving through a billion-dollar-plus tax hike on New York City jobs. 

The tax hike is Albany’s supposed rescue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which faces a $2 billion deficit next year. 

In February, Hochul proposed to increase a 14-year-old tax levied on downstate employers’ payrolls, from 0.34% of payrolls to 0.5%, raising an extra $800 million a year. 

Predictably, suburban lawmakers balked at this hike, and for good reason: Employers on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley don’t get the same value, in everyday service, from transit that city employers do. 

So lawmakers solved this problem by nixing the tax hike on suburban employers. 

Good — but bad. The state will grab the money from city employers instead — and then some. 

Instead of facing a 47% tax hike, from 0.34% of payrolls to 0.5%, city employers get a near-doubling of the tax, to 0.6%. 

And oh, the tax will raise more money, a $1.1 billion increase instead of $800 million. 

The state will drain more than a billion dollars from New York City employers just at the time employers are wondering: Do I really need the hassle of being in the city? 

White-collar employers have never been more mobile.

Their employees refuse to come to work five days a week, meaning firms are getting less value for the exorbitant real-estate prices they pay here (and less value, too, from the MTA). 

The quality of life for Manhattan commuters has deteriorated.

Big banks and tech firms are laying off thousands. 

And now the state is saying: Even when we have a budget surplus, even when the economy is not (yet) in recession and even when we are still flush with federal relief funds, our first solution to a fiscal challenge is a tax on jobs. 

By Ed Cox

What’s worse than “three men in a room?”

Three Democrats in a room, two of whom have supermajorities, rendering the third, Gov. Hochul, weaker than she already is. 

Needed: full debate of the proposed budget in the committees and on the floors of the Legislature. 

New York is the only state with major deposits of frackable shale not producing natural gas.

Needed: under a solid regulatory regime, full production of natural gas in New York State. 

Illegal pot shops, now 1,400 and growing, all dealing in cash and subject to dangerous unreported robberies.

Needed: a workable law thoroughly vetted by the Legislature and the public. 

Unsafe streets are killing our major cities, and New York City is no exception.

Needed: major commonsense changes in the “raise the age,” discovery processes and bail provisions of New York’s criminal laws. 

Oppressive taxes and regulations and a budget twice the size of Florida’s despite 2 million fewer residents have continued to drive citizens away, with the result that last year, the tide of New Yorkers leaving continued to rise to more than 200,000.

Needed: tax cuts and regulatory reforms. 

Needed generally: more jobs, safe streets and better schools. 

That’s the way to save our state — and the governor’s budget delivers none of it.