Hello, everyone. We wanted to make you aware of a meeting of the Siting Board to be held today, February 13th. According to the notice the stated “purpose of this meeting is to consider initiating a rulemaking process to amend Article 10 Regulations, Parts 1000 and 1001 of Title 16 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York, on an emergency basis.”

SOS has been very active in responding to this notice. We became parties to the case, submitted comments and issued a press release yesterday. The press release follows below. You can read the meeting notice and the draft memorandum and resolution from the Siting Board, as well as our comments and those from other parties at the following link for Case 20-F-0067: http://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/MatterManagement/CaseMaster.aspx?Mattercaseno=20-F-0067

We will be monitoring this case closely. Changes made “on an emergency basis” are cause for concern and don’t bode well for continued public participation in the Article 10 process.

As always, we appreciate your continued support!

Press Release:

Governor Cuomo’s stated goal of getting industrial renewable projects sited at a more rapid pace is now impacting the existing siting process. Save Ontario Shores, Inc. has become aware that with little notice and no advance discussion with impacted communities, the New York State Article 10 Board on Electric Generation Siting has proposed adopting amendments to the Article 10 regulations on an emergency basis. Notice of this action was posted on Friday, Feb. 7, with details of the amendments posted on Tuesday, Feb. 11.

A meeting regarding the amendments will take place in Albany on Thursday, Feb. 13, immediately following a 9:30 a.m. meeting on the Number Three Wind project.

Claiming that existing regulations are causing financial strain on developers, the Siting Board is planning to adopt amendments to the Article 10 regulations. These amendments would limit public input on projects that have been granted certification by the Siting Board but then want to request changes to the project plan.

The standard rulemaking process, that includes time for public input, is being replaced with an emergency implementation of these rule changes. The emergency is based on the need to deploy renewable energy resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Siting Board has stated that the regular rulemaking process might cause these private developers construction delays which might risk their financing.

Save Ontario Shores has become a party to this Emergency Rulemaking case and has submitted comments that state in part:

If this is considered to be an emergency, then anything that is stated by the corporation building a project as financially or otherwise impeding its operations will be determined an emergency. This will further erode public participation, already diminished by the unreasonably short 12-month period to litigate issues and reach a final decision. This is precisely what energy developers want.