This a recording from our Renewable Supporters Speaker Series on September 8, 2025. Our guest was Troy Weldy, President of the Columbia Land Conservancy, who spoke about water quality and wetlands preservation in the development of solar projects on agricultural land.
The Inflation Reduction Act created many incentives for clean energy upgrades such as EVs and heat pumps. Many of these rebates and tax credits will now expire in the next few months because of the “Big Beautiful” Budget Bill.
Watch for an overview of what the changes are and how to leverage these benefits before they disappear.
Speakers:
Michael Hernandez – Rewiring America
Samrat Pathania & Steve Wehr – Clean Energy Coaches, NY for Clean Power
In this virtual teach-in we address how the Clean Air Initiative can ensure the CLCPA’s environmental justice and greenhouse gas reduction goals are backed by enforceable regulations with mandatory emission limits on New York’s top-emitting sectors, buildings and transportation. We walk you through how to use New York’s official public comment tool to weigh in on the recently proposed Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule, which requires corporate polluters to tell us what they are dumping into our air (really important as EPA has signaled that it will end this requirement at the federal level)
Speakers:
Julie Tighe, President NYLCV & NYLCVEF
Eric Walker, Energy Justice Senior Policy Manager, WE ACT for Environmental Justice
Moderated by Betta Broad, Campaign Director, New Yorkers for Clean Power & Association for Energy Affordability
We dive into:
The latest with NY’s cap-and-invest program, now called the Clean Air Initiative and why it’s our best path to regulate and phase out emissions from buildings and transportation.
The health and economic benefits of cap-and-invest + the $1 billion Sustainable Future Fund
How to show up for upcoming public hearings, submit comments, and help push for the reporting rule that would mandate fossil fuel providers to report their GHG impacts, and call for the full release of regulations to actually cap GHG and copollutant emissions.
New Yorkers are paying the price for outdated gas infrastructure. But there’s a better way. In this teach-in we dig into a new report from Switchbox that compares the cost of replacing leak-prone gas pipelines to the cost of fully electrifying the buildings those pipes serve.
The findings? Targeted electrification can save ratepayers billions—even when accounting for full electrification costs. We explored the report’s insights and how the NY HEAT Act can make these smarter investments possible.
Speakers:
Jessica Azulay – Executive Director, Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE)
Juan-Pablo Velez – Executive Director, Switchbox
Too many New Yorkers cannot afford their utility and heating bills, and the problem is only getting worse. This briefing will lay out the problem, identify some of the root causes, and highlight key policy solutions that will help lower energy costs now and into the future.
Laurie Wheelock – Executive Director, Public Utility Law Project (PULP)
Annie Carforo – Climate Justice Campaigns Manager, WE ACT for Environmental Justice
Allison Considine – Senior Campaign & Communications Manager, Building Decarbonization Coalition (BDC)
Visit our Teach In Archive for more: https://nyforcleanpower.org/teach-in-archive/
Join New Yorkers for Clean Power on Monday, February 10, noon to 1 P.M. for a discussion of Agrivoltaics—Supporting Farmer-Focused Solar. Our guests are Lucy Bullock Sieger, VP of Strategy from Lightstar Renewables (a member of NYSEIA), and Iain Ward, founder of SolAg Services. Iain is faculty with American Farmland Trust on a DOE-funded farmer technical assistance collaboration with Rutgers Agrivoltaics Program in NJ.
Join New Yorkers for Clean Power and the NY Energy Democracy Alliance for an interactive teach-in on the Green Affordable Pre-Electrification Fund, legislation that will help create a pathway to home energy upgrades for low and moderate income homes.
Our panelists include: Assemblymember Anna Kelles and State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, the lead sponsors of this crucial legislation, Jasmine Graham, Executive Director and Mid-Hudson Energy Transition, Avni Pravin, Deputy Director at the Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE), Matt Dennis, heat pump and weatherization sales at Halco Energy, and Annie Carforo of WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
New York has set an ambitious climate plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but false solutions threaten to derail progress. In this teach-in, we will examine three problematic solutions: so-called “renewable natural gas,” hydrogen blending for buildings, and carbon capture and storage, all of which could impede real climate action.
Guest Speakers:
● Hillary Aidun, Earthjustice
● Erin Murphy, Environmental Defense Fund
● Carolyn Raffensperger, The Science and Environmental Health Network
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Hillary Aidun, Senior Associate Attorney Earthjustice
A senior associate attorney in the Northeast Regional Office. Hillary works to advance environmental justice in the northeast region and advocates for meaningful and equitable implementation of New York’s climate law in state court and before administrative agencies. Before joining Earthjustice Hillary was a fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, where she worked on expanding renewable energy resources, challenging federal regulatory rollbacks, and tracking New York State climate law.
Erin Murphy, Senior Attorney, Energy Markets & Utility Regulation
Areas of expertise: Natural gas and electricity market design, natural gas policy, utility regulation. Erin represents EDF in regulatory proceedings involving the design of wholesale and retail natural gas markets, seeking to facilitate the clean energy transformation. She advocates before state public utility commissions for gas supply planning mechanisms to prevent unneeded long-term investments in gas infrastructure, and for utility adoption of programs to reduce methane emissions from gas distribution networks. Erin also advocates before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for new and better ways to facilitate renewable energy integration and harmonize the wholesale natural gas and electricity markets.
Carolyn Raffensperger, Executive Director Environmental Health Network.
While working as an archaeologist in the desert Southwest of the U.S., she was enchanted by the beauty of the landscape and horrified at the environmental threats posed by dams, mining and toxic waste disposal. She left archaeology to work for the Sierra Club in Illinois. The desire to protect the rivers, prairie and desert led her to law school. Her graduate school training in archaeology and her law school education provides the tools Carolyn needs to serve her clients—the future generations of all species.
New York has set an ambitious climate plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but false solutions threaten to derail progress. In this teach-in, we will examine three problematic solutions: so-called “renewable natural gas,” hydrogen blending for buildings, and carbon capture and storage, all of which could impede real climate action. Missed this one? Find the recording here […]