In early 2013, New York’s then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo showed up in Dunkirk on a wintry day to announce with great fanfare that the NRG power plant in Dunkirk would be converted from a clean-coal facility to natural gas-fueled power production. I was a Chautauqua County Legislator at the time and I was there that day to experience the community’s collective sigh of relief that the county’s largest property-taxpaying entity would continue to operate.

However, everything changed as the governor pivoted and decided he would bow to political pressure from the advocates on the far left that ultimately led to this critical power plant closing down by 2016. The Dunkirk NRG plant was one of many casualties of Cuomo’s war on low-cost, reliable power in New York State.

Instead of investing in cleaner, reliable energy production using natural gas, hydropower and nuclear, Cuomo chose to shutter power plants in favor of importing power from outside New York, largely from coal-fired power plants. This was the start of a virtue-signaling emissions shell game that continues today; claiming that New York is “clean and green” while actually increasing overall emissions outside our state to meet our power needs. This reckless, costly agenda was designed to appease special interests at the expense of New York taxpayers and ratepayers.

In 2018, while I was county executive, a broad group of stakeholders came together, after securing a federal grant, to commission a study of re-use options for the closed power plant. After looking at everything from a public park to a resort hotel, the results were clear … the “best and highest use” for the NRG plant was for it to generate power again.

We have seen the devastating negative impact of power plant closures, including its contribution to Dunkirk’s financial woes. Our state is now importing more power than ever before. New York was once energy independent. But now, on peak demand days, our state often imports more power than it produces thanks to Albany’s incoherent and irresponsible energy policy.

Our energy situation is now so bad that the New York Independent System Operators (NYISO), which operates the state’s electric grid, is sounding the alarm that New York may face energy shortages, and even rolling blackouts, as soon as this year.

To her credit, Gov. Kathy Hochul has finally recognized that New York’s increasing energy demands cannot be met solely with wind and solar. However, the solution she is now offering is simply too little and too late to meet New York’s urgent power needs. I support the idea of developing nuclear power as a part of a diverse energy portfolio. But energy experts caution that developing a new nuclear power plant is likely a decade or more away from reality. The far more cost-effective and quicker solution to New York’s energy supply problem would be to expand the use of natural gas for electricity production. That was the right plan for the Dunkirk NRG plant back in 2013 and continues to be now. Nuclear power can be a long-term goal for a transition to a zero-emission energy future. But the immediate needs can and should be met with natural gas.

The governor needs to show leadership in this moment. She needs to push back against her far-left colleagues and radical special interests. She must secure New York’s energy future by embracing natural gas and other reliable energy sources. New Yorkers deserve relief from sky-high utility bills and a secure future with reliable, low-cost energy.

The path to success for the Dunkirk NRG plant has already been mapped out, including land easements that were secured for the gas lines to come from existing natural gas wells nearby. Most importantly, the people of Dunkirk, and all of Chautauqua County, deserve a future with a power plant that is providing energy, tax relief, and good paying jobs — as soon as possible. That can only occur by using affordable, abundant natural gas to re-power the Dunkirk NRG plant.

Sen. George Borrello represents the 57th Senate District which includes Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Genesee and Wyoming counties, as well as a portion of Allegany County.