Gavin Donohue can remember the days spent at his family’s summer home in the Adirondacks as a child. He can also remember the environmental degradation wrought there by unregulated greenhouse gas emissions: water pollution, acid rain.
And yet, even then, he claimed he saw the need to generate power.
“The reality is that energy policy and environmental policy are inextricably linked together,” he said. “The biggest thing we’re seeing is that we have a lack of balance.”
As worldwide market turbulence propels energy prices ever upward, sending the cost of oil into the ether and stoking fears of another gas crunch, a debate has erupted over whether to build more power plants or develop alternative sources of energy.
Donohue, president & CEO of the Independent Power Producers of New York (IPPNY), a consortium of energy companies in the state, is in no doubt about the answer.
“New York State is in desperate need in the coming years for more capacity,” he said. “We need to make sure we’re not proceeding with unbalanced or out-of-balance environmental regulation.”
Donohue sees overly burdensome environmental regulation as perhaps his greatest obstacle. He foresees a situation in the coming years in which energy companies abandon the state in droves, taking jobs and tax revenues with them, all the while charging New Yorkers to deliver power from out of state.
“I represent a whole bunch of companies that have a willingness and desire to invest in New York State,” he said. “We want to be part of the solution.”



The solution, however, is something he and a number of environmental groups have tussled over for years. Green issues have generated genuine political momentum, especially in New York. Many environmental supporters have tagged power companies, such as those Donohue represents, as chronic polluters. That is a toxic label, with the threat of global warming becoming ever more real in people’s minds.
Donohue says the companies IPPNY represents support renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, but do not believe those options can bring down the cost of energy by themselves. Sometimes, he says, those supporting environmental protections do so without a full enough appreciation for how these may ultimately register on the power bills of New Yorkers.
“There are some out there that have no idea of the impact these environmental regulations have on the consumer,” he said.
So though environmental conservation is important, he believes that this is not the most important factor for most people.
“I think what consumers are paying for energy these days is probably even more important,” he said.
Donohue claimed environmental regulation, meant to cap greenhouse gas emissions and spur climate-friendly innovation, has so far stifled economic development in the state.  
“We need to build more generators, we need to build more transmission,” he said, naming his two greatest priorities. “It’s the legs of the stools.”
An advocate of a renewed Article X, he believes New York should be putting up more plants, including nuclear ones. But even a surge in local power plant development will not halt the energy crisis, he said, given its roots in global instability and a worldwide economic downturn.
“It’s going to take more than New York to step up,” he said. “We don’t have the federal leadership, and we haven’t had it for some time.”
As for New York, Donohue said the battle with those he sees as overzealous environmentalists continues.  
“All we’ve done in the last five years is lay on one environmental regulation after another,” he said. “It sends a real chilling message to developers.”