A Battle Over the Future of Energy Plays Out in New York
In New York, a climate victory over a new pipeline has left people without gas to heat their homes.
Lights out at the Providence House residence for homeless mothers and children in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York on October 15, 2019. National Grid said that without approval for a new gas pipeline under the mouth of the Hudson River, it can’t turn on the gas for any new customers.
Photographer: Eugene Reznik/BloombergA skinny Brooklyn brownstone was ready for occupants in mid-August. The beds in each unit had comforters, the drawers in the kitchens had utensils, and the living rooms had baskets of toys for the children who were about to move in. “It looks like someone just stepped out to the street to go to the bodega,” Scott Stepp, director of development at Providence House, a nonprofit that provides housing for homeless mothers.
The homes had one problem: Providence House couldn’t get National Grid Plc, the local utility, to hook up the gas to the buildings. That’s because National Grid and New York state are fighting over an underground pipeline—and the future of energy.