Over the past few months, there has been a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm about New York’s offshore wind program – which promises to be the largest in the country. There have also been bad-faith attempts to discredit a program that won’t only help us reach our clean energy goals, but promises to be an economic boon for Long Island. 

To lift up adjustments to the cost for construction for wind turbines, without lifting up the price increases happening in virtually every industry in the world, is disingenuous. Any homeowner who has paid for repairs over the past two years would be able to tell you: everything is getting more expensive. And in no other industry is that the case more than the oil industry. At $85 a barrel, we can only expect the price of oil to continue to skyrocket. From corporate manipulation to new international trade agreements, oil continues to prove itself as both expensive and destructive.    

 While it’s true the transition to renewable energy has not been perfect, the strides we are making in New York are revolutionary. Innovation and transformation takes time when it’s done correctly, but ultimately we stand to save money and create new jobs, all while generating energy that won’t decimate our shorelines or poison our water sources.   

As a community surrounded by water, we’ve seen first-hand the impact climate change has had on our environment, our water levels and the cost to insure our homes. The so-called “once-in-a-century storms” are happening more frequently and causing more devastation than ever before.  

We stand to become a leader in clean energy, while simultaneously creating thousands of new jobs and injecting millions of dollars into our state and local economy. Once established, ratepayers can expect lower utility bills and will give the state the resource to develop desperately needed upgrades to the power grid. I am so eager for a cleaner energy future in New York and the benefits it will bring to our community, climate, water and the health and wellbeing of generations to come. Each milestone marks a step further away from crippling fossil fuels and toward a more sustainable future.   

This is a pressing moral imperative. We’ve already come so far, we cannot allow disinformation and lies from greedy corporations and big oil companies to deter our mission.