Harckham’s Advocacy for Home Rule in Battery Storage Issue is Disingenuous
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
The article “Somers Hires Legal Counsel in Battery Energy Storage Fight” in the June 18-24 Northern Westchester Examiner did a good job of highlighting just how broadly unpopular the Mahopac-Somers Battery Farm is. The project would straddle the town lines between Carmel and Somers, and folks in both towns have been consistently opposed to the project since it came to light.
Only days after this article was written, hundreds of residents at a public hearing held by the Carmel Town Board reinforced the obvious fact that this project is deeply unpopular. Conspicuously absent from the event, however, was state Sen. Peter Harckham, who has recently tried to frame himself as an advocate for local autonomy despite his record to the contrary.
When Harckham was caught withdrawing a bill that would grant battery farms the privilege of being fast-tracked through the state’s clean energy siting process, Assemblyman Matt Slater, Congressman Mike Lawler and state Senate candidate Gina Arena rightfully claimed it as a victory for local rule. Harckham even admitted that he didn’t withdraw the bill because his voters opposed it. Instead, he pointed out that this siting authority was given to another state agency, the Public Service Commission, which is run by unelected bureaucrats.
To top it all off, this policy change was shoved into the state’s budget bill, an all-too-common practice that forces legislators to take tough votes against essential government functions if they want to oppose the bad policies buried within the budget.
Harckham condescendingly claims that Slater, Lawler and Arena are politicizing the issue, but unless he reintroduces the bill with the correct language, we can assume that he backed down for fear of political consequences, letting the state budget and unelected bureaucrats do the heavy lifting for him instead.
Harckham also told The Examiner that he “introduced legislation to support local governments as they contend with other proposals for energy storage systems” but his solution is nowhere to be found on the state’s database of legislative proposals. The Examiner should investigate this to determine if he had actually submitted legislation at the time he made that statement. Lies from politicians aren’t rare, but they’re certainly newsworthy.
Sandy Baelis
Yorktown
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