After weeks of late nights and high-stakes negotiations, the Assembly gavel finally fell, closing the 2025 legislative session—nearly a week later than originally scheduled.
While end-of-session crunch is nothing new, this year was especially compressed. The state budget was over a month late, cutting into the time legislators had to debate non-budget items. As a result, some of the state’s promising clean energy proposals didn’t cross the finish line. But amid the constraints, there were notable wins, and progress that creates a strong foundation for future action.
A Key Victory – Repeal of the “100-foot” Rule
Both chambers of the legislature passed a bill to repeal the “100-foot “rule, a costly and outdated ratepayer-funded subsidy for new gas hookups, which costs New Yorkers about $200 million annually. In a rapidly electrifying world, we will have little use for gas pipelines within the next few decades, leaving New Yorkers to pay for stranded assets on their upwardly spiraling utility bill – an affordability crisis around the corner, made worse by these ratepayer-sponsored system expansions. United is now calling for the bill to be sent to Governor Hochul’s desk for immediate signing to protect New York families from needlessly rising bills.
Funding for Clean Transportation and Building Electrification
The legislature and the Governor demonstrated their continued support for clean transportation in the Sustainable Future Program which allocated $100 million for electric school buses, $50 million for EV fast charging, and $100 million for Charge Ready ensuring every corner of the state has access to the grid of tomorrow and jump-starting long term cost savings for New Yorkers.
Additionally, the Sustainable Future Program allocated $450M for Building Decarbonization including: $200 million for thermal energy networks, $40 million to support municipal clean heating projects and, $50 million for EmPower Plus, delivering energy upgrades for low-income households.
Outside of the Sustainable Future Program, the legislature increased the geothermal heating and cooling tax credit, up to $10,000 per system, increasing accessibility to more taxpayers regardless of tax liability.
Missed Opportunities Worth Revisiting
Today, utilities that provide both gas and electric service plan their systems separately, without considering the interactive effects or ways in which they could optimize their expensive infrastructure projects to cut down on duplicative costs. This leads to the costly overbuilding of infrastructure that ratepayers ultimately fund and missed opportunities to improve reliability and increase customer control over their own energy destinies. It also increases the cost to the state and to stakeholders by increasing the sheer volume of regulatory proceedings and bureaucratic work.
This year, United championed legislation that would have required combination gas and electric utilities to integrate their planning processes, minimizing regulatory inefficiencies and customer risk while maximizing transparency and saving money. Though the bill did not move out of committee, it motivated long-overdue conversations among relevant stakeholders that set the proposal up for success in 2026.
Another key proposal for sales and use tax exemptions for commercial energy storage systems would have jumpstarted new storage projects and created good-paying clean energy jobs. Similar incentives have already succeeded in expanding solar and fuel cells, energy storage should be next.
And while the Senate passed legislation that would encourage the use of grid-enhancing technologies (GETs) and advanced transmission technologies (ATTs), the Assembly didn’t take up a companion bill. Smarter transmission investments improve system reliability, reduce costs for ratepayers, and ensure the grid can accommodate higher levels of renewable energy. These technologies optimize our existing transmission capacity in a relatively inexpensive manner, reducing the amount of expensive transmission upgrades needed.
On clean transportation, the budget investments were a helpful start, but not sufficient. There are still concerns about a lack of medium and heavy-duty charging investment in the state. While proceedings are ongoing at the PSC to expand incentives and ensure adequate power, work can still be done next year to help businesses transition to zero-emission fleets and to allow schools more flexibility for leasing and investing in charging infrastructure.
While it’s disappointing that these initiatives didn’t make it across the finish line, it’s only the first year of a two-year legislative cycle in New York. These bills will be reintroduced in January when the legislature returns to Albany, and we’ll be ready to champion our key priorities across the finish line to ensure energy affordability and reliability for New Yorkers.
Legislative sessions are always a balancing act, and this year underscores the importance of forward-looking energy policy. As New York grapples with rising energy demand and growing costs, lawmakers have a chance next session to deliver practical solutions that benefit families and businesses across the state.