A candidate running to become the state’s financial watchdog wants to take New York’s ever-increasing gas and electric bills out of the hands of industry-affiliated bureaucrats.
Democrat Raj Goyle — who’s looking to primary incumbent Comptroller Tom DiNapoli — wants to audit the utility companies perpetually asking for the OK to charge customers more because ratepayers need a “cop on the beat.”
Goyle blasted DiNapoli for not doing enough to scrutinize the state Public Service Commission, which he claimed has been a “rubber stamp” as it reviews and approves rate increases for Con Edison, National Grid and other providers.
“It’s been Rip Van Winkle. For too long, our state’s auditors and regulators have been asleep at the wheel, rubber-stamping higher electric bills for New Yorkers — often on behalf of foreign-owned utilities. Ratepayers deserve better,” Goyle told The Post.
“This is about fairness. If they can raise your bill, the comptroller should be the ratepayers’ cop on the beat — someone who follows the money, exposes the deals, and makes sure New Yorkers finally have a real partner in the energy battles of the coming years.”
Goyle’s “Energy Fairness and Ratepayer Accountability” plan would include a new “Utility Fairness Audit” powers to directly examine investor-owned utilities, he said.
“My office will audit the state’s role in these price hikes,” he said. “New Yorkers pay more while utilities and their shareholders pocket tax credits, abatements, bonuses, and side deals — and for years no one in state government has followed the money. I will expose those deals and put real pressure on regulators and Albany to stop letting the system work for utilities while everyone else keeps getting squeezed.”
Goyle said a big problem that has to be addressed is that new and emerging artificial intelligence data centers are devouring more and more of the energy supply.
Data centers consumed 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023 and it’s projected to rise to up to 12% by 20230.
The New York Independent Systems Operators predicts double-digit grid-load growth tied to data centers, AI and electrification — and Goyle said the data centers should pay a “fair share fee.
He insisted that green energy mandates — some of which have been delayed by Gov. Kathy Hochul amid opposition or impractical deadlines — are not the main drivers of higher utility costs.
The utilities maintain the transition costs to move from fossil fuels to cleaner energy — which includes new infrastructure such as transmission lines — is a cost factor.
All the state’s major energy suppliers have proposed rate hikes or had them approved.
“This campaign will make it clear that the office can and must act as a cop on the beat for ratepayers — auditing, exposing, clawing back and refunding what’s been taken from them,” Goyle said.
A tech executive and lawyer, Goyle served in the Kansas state House of Representatives and lost a federal congressional race against Republican Mike Pompeo, who would later become Secretary of State in the first Trump administration.
Drew Warshaw, an affordable housing nonprofit executive, is another announced candidate in the race.
DiNapoli, in office since 2007, had no immediate comment.
