It's funny how these things reverberate in the most predictable fashion—unless you live in the Empire State.
National Review (6/28/19) column: "In response to the ongoing blockade of the pipelines, two of New York’s biggest gas utilities, Consolidated Edison and National Grid, have said they will quit providing new gas connections to customers in their service areas in and around New York City. As I show in a new report for the Manhattan Institute, about 800,000 New Yorkers are now living in communities subject to gas-hookup moratoriums. About 300,000 New Englanders are facing the same predicament...The shortage of natural gas means higher energy costs. In January, about two weeks after Con Ed announced a moratorium on new gas connections in southern Westchester County, the utility announced it would be seeking an 11 percent hike in residential natural-gas rates and a nearly 6 percent increase in residential electricity rates. Those increases will be added to the state’s already high energy prices. In 2018, residential electricity customers in New York were paying about 18.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, while average U.S. residential customers were paying about 12.9 cents. Thus, New Yorkers are paying about 44 percent more for electricity than the national average."
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