EDITORIAL: A better plan for power for jobs

Helping businesses reduce energy costs is a useful way of keeping jobs in New York. But the New York Power Authority programs that did that have now expired, at a time when we need a lot more jobs. It's time for a successor.

Last year, the Power for Jobs and Energy Cost Savings Benefit programs saved participants $50 million-$100 million. But they had weaknesses. One was that the legislature renewed them annually, creating uncertainty and making it tough for businesses to plan. Still, many firms wanted to get in, but NYPA wasn't permitted to add new customers.

Gov. David A. Paterson is wisely refusing to sign the latest stopgap renewal passed by the legislature, because he has a better idea: Energize New York, a self-sustaining program that will reallocate 455 megawatts of NYPA's cheap hydropower, add it to an equal amount of market-rate power, and create a 910-megawatt program that will provide less expensive electricity to spur economic development across the state.

It will include the participants in the expired programs and accept more customers, but they must create or retain jobs and meet other new criteria. And, crucially, it will offer seven-year contracts. But it will be paid for by reducing, but not eliminating, an average $2-a-month discount that some upstate residents have been getting. Still, the Senate - including key upstaters - agrees with Paterson. Now the Assembly must get with the program and pass this bill, to light up jobs statewide. hN