Ms. Iannello needs to ask her governor these questions. This Huntley deal was approved by former governor Pataki and has stalled with Spitzer. And then Spitzer turns around and decides to charge electric plants for carbon off sets. From what I have read Huntley will be required to pay over 60 Million a year to buy carbon off sets. That will most likely put them out of business or make their electric rates so high and unaffordable they will have to pass off the costs to the consumer.

ALBANY, Oct. 23 New York Times. — New York is one of more than a dozen states, led by California, preparing to sue the Bush administration for holding up efforts to regulate emissions from cars and trucks, several people involved in the lawsuit said on Tuesday.

The move comes as New York and other Northeastern states are stepping up their push for tougher regulation of greenhouse gases as part of their continuing opposition to President Bush’s policies.

On Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration is to issue regulations requiring power plants to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions, part of a broader plan among 10 Northeastern states, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,

State should speed Huntley power plant conversion

I represent the 10th Legislative District in Erie County, and the Huntley Plant in the Town of Tonawanda is very important to me. Thus, I was most appreciative of the recent Buffalo News editorial regarding Huntley and the potential new investment by NRG Energy at the Tonawanda site.

NRG was the winner of an incentive award from New York State to build a new clean-coal power plant. The environmentally superior coal gasification technology was incrementally more expensive, but a memorandum of understanding was entered by parties agreeing to help bring the project in at market rates; the New York Power Authority and Empire State Development Corp. are two principal signatories in that memorandum, now more than a year old.

The same edition of The News contained an article describing a deal on the table for Alcoa Aluminum in Massena. Alcoa is to receive 478 megawatts of low-cost power in exchange for $600 million in capital investment by Alcoa and no new jobs. The deal is valued at $5.6 billion to Alcoa over 30 years. The deal was described as “exceptionally lavish.” But it provides an ideal opportunity to compare it to the Huntley proposal, which provides so much more for our region while requiring so much less from the Power Authority.

At a recent breakfast for elected leaders sponsored by the Buffalo Building Trades, NRG officials said that if the authority would sign the state-sanctioned purchase of power for 30 years, rather than 20, and use its bonding capability to assist in lowering project financing costs — combined with existing Empire Zone benefits — construction could begin on this stateof- the-art facility, expected to be a model to help address global warming.

The purchase agreement will allow our federal leaders to secure existing funds and finalize legislation for new funds to finance the geological storage of greenhouse gases. I must assume that revenues generated from the soonto- be-implemented Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative will be used, at least in part, for greenhouse gas storage costs. What could be a more appropriate use?

To compare to Alcoa, Huntley will produce five to six times the economic impact — $3.3 billion total, and more than 1,000 well-paying construction jobs for four to five consecutive years, and more than 100 permanent new positions at the finished facility. Disposable income will buy a lot of houses, cars, pizzas and tickets to see the Bills and the Sabres.

Even more exciting, NRG desires to involve the University at Buffalo School of Engineering to make the finished project a learning lab and help address global warming.

The debate will likely continue as to whether the Alcoa deal is “lavish,” but the facts surely should make our governor’s decision simple to “encourage” the authority and others to deliver on this agreement and make Huntley happen.

Michele M. Iannello is an Erie County legislator.

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