Will Section 94-C Enable Renewable Energy Project Siting and Help New York State Achieve Its Energy Targets?

This Note examines how Section 94-C is an improvement from earlier siting regimes in NYS, which emphasized a time intensive and comprehensive approval process primarily tailored to the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of fossil-fuel power projects. This Note explains how Section 94-C sought to bridge the historical disconnect between old siting statutes with NYS’s more recent priorities for renewable energy adoption and addressing climate change. This Note demonstrates how Section 94-C can bypass massive delays, provided that ORES establishes more reasonable and predictable substantive standards, as well as reduces the complexity and extent of procedural requirements for developers.