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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Advocates: Poor, Middle Class Left Out of Clean Energy Program

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Thursday, September 28, 2017   

BROOKLYN, N.Y. – New York's working class and minority communities still can't access clean, renewable power, according to activists seeking the attention of New York's energy czar.

Members of the Energy Democracy Alliance interrupted the keynote speech at the Reforming the Energy Vision, or REV Future 2017 Conference in Brooklyn on Tuesday.

Two years ago, the state launched a program that was supposed to help bring solar power to communities that couldn't afford to install panels on their roofs.

But according to Kim Fraczek, director of the Sane Energy Project, so far there's been little progress.

"If only 200 low-income families in the whole state of New York are being served, how is this actually reforming the energy vision?" she questions.

Richard Kauffman, the state energy czar, wrote earlier this year that the goal of REV isn't to make solar work for every customer right now, but it would become more accessible over time.

But Fraczek says the state is not allocating the resources it has to give low-income communities access to renewable energy sources. She points to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's decision to push for billions of dollars in subsidies to prop up aging nuclear power plants.

"So we have the means to do it,” she states. “We just have to force our decision makers to have the will to serve our communities instead of their banker friends."

The Energy Democracy Alliance says the state needs to ensure that all New Yorkers can participate in decisions about their energy futures, and share the benefits of renewable energy.




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