New York Republicans Trying to Slip Pricey Biofuels Mandate into Budget

- by Fredric U. Dick­er, March 2, 2015, New York Post

With a bit­ter-cold win­ter and sky­rock­et­ing heat­ing oil use, the GOP’s tim­ing couldn’t be worse.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans, under pres­sure from mav­er­ick super­mar­ket bil­lion­aire John Cat­si­ma­tidis, are try­ing to slip a “green bio­fu­els” man­date into Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new bud­get that could add $150 mil­lion a year to heat­ing costs in New York, busi­ness sources have told The Post.

Cat­si­ma­tidis, a Repub­li­can may­oral hope­ful in 2013 and a heavy cam­paign con­trib­u­tor to Sen­ate Repub­li­cans as well as Cuo­mo, is well known in the city for own­ing the Grist­edes super­mar­ket chain.

But he’s also the own­er of Unit­ed Metro Ener­gy Corp., a large com­pa­ny that is putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on a mas­sive Brook­lyn bio­fu­el-pro­cess­ing plant that will be the largest in the North­east when it opens this fall.

Cat­si­ma­tidis told The Post that his lob­by­ists, includ­ing the well-con­nect­ed firm Con­nel­ly McLaugh­lin & Woloz, “are try­ing to get it done’’ and that he’s “hope­ful’’ the bio­fu­el man­date — forc­ing home­own­ers and busi­ness­es to use a mix of tra­di­tion­al petro­le­um heat­ing oil with soy­bean- and oth­er veg­etable-based oils — will be approved this year.

He stands to make a wind­fall prof­it, both in terms of the increased val­ue of Unit­ed Metro and from the open­ing of a mas­sive new mar­ket for bio­fu­el sales, ener­gy indus­try insid­ers said.

Sen­ate Repub­li­cans were described by ner­vous busi­ness groups as mov­ing to put the man­date into Cuomo’s bud­get because of Cat­si­ma­tidis’ influ­ence and heavy lob­by­ing from Sen­ate-con­nect­ed bio­fu­el inter­ests, includ­ing the Nation­al Biodiesel Board, a pro­duc­ers’ umbrel­la group that includes Unit­ed Metro and Mid­west­ern soy­bean farmers.

Among the polit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed lob­by­ists hired by the Biodiesel Board is Mike Avel­la, for­mer chief coun­sel to Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Dean Ske­los (R‑Nassau). Avella’s firm, Meara Avel­la Dick­in­son, includes Bri­an Meara, a key coop­er­at­ing wit­ness in US Attor­ney Preet Bharara’s cor­rup­tion case against for­mer Assem­bly Speak­er Shel­don Sil­ver (D‑Manhattan).

Oth­er polit­i­cal­ly “wired’’ lob­by­ists push­ing bio­fu­els include Mike Trun­zo, son of for­mer Repub­li­can Sen. Cae­sar Trun­zo and one-time chief of staff to Sen. Kemp Han­non (R‑Nassau); Evan Stavisky, son of Sen. Toby Stavisky (D‑Queens); and Cyn­thia Shenker, for­mer coun­sel to three Assem­bly major­i­ty lead­ers, offi­cial records show.

Asked about the bio­fu­els man­date, Ske­los spokesman Scott Reif would say only that Sen­ate Repub­li­cans “are now review­ing it and con­sid­er­ing all rel­e­vant issues.’’

How­ev­er, Nation­al Fed­er­a­tion of Inde­pen­dent Busi­ness­es New York direc­tor Mike Durant said there’s a wide­spread belief that the Sen­ate GOP is try­ing to con­vince Cuo­mo to include the man­date in the budget.

“Some advo­cates of this require­ment have close ties to the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans and they’re try­ing to work those rela­tion­ships to get this done,’’Durant said.

Anoth­er busi­ness lob­by­ist said, “It’s hard to imag­ine that the Sen­ate, with its Long Island and upstate mem­bers whose con­stituents depend on heat­ing oil to stay warm on these frigid days, would con­sid­er man­dat­ing addi­tion­al costs to ben­e­fit a well-con­nect­ed New York City billionaire.’’

The bio­fu­els man­date would require all petro­le­um-based heat­ing oil sold in the state to con­tain 2 per­cent or more of soy­bean oil and/or spent veg­etable oils, such as those used in fry­ing foods, a sup­posed effort to reduce green­house gases.

Many busi­ness lead­ers, how­ev­er, con­tend the man­date is actu­al­ly an unjus­ti­fied sub­sidy to the com­pa­ny of a wealthy cam­paign con­trib­u­tor as well as out-of-state soy­bean grow­ers that will do noth­ing to address cli­mate concerns.

“Bio­fu­els,’’ much like the ethanol added to petro­le­um-based gaso­line, con­tain less ener­gy per gal­lon than oil from petro­le­um, and there­fore, add to the cost of pro­duc­ing heat and energy.

Last year, Cuo­mo vetoed a bio­fu­els man­date that wasn’t part of the bud­get, cit­ing cost concerns.

But this year, busi­ness groups fear that the gov­er­nor, who has increas­ing­ly embraced envi­ron­men­tal caus­es, may allow the man­date to be slipped into the budget.

Man­hat­tan Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen. Liz Krueger will soon sub­mit leg­is­la­tion designed to block Cuomo’s con­tro­ver­sial new “burn and shred’’ rule for offi­cial email communications.

“With every­thing that is hap­pen­ing in Albany, it is cru­cial that we shine a light on the gov­er­nor and increase trans­paren­cy,’’ Krueger told The Post.

“To have a pol­i­cy of delet­ing ­emails after 90 days sends the exact wrong mes­sage and is extreme­ly tone deaf to the prob­lems state gov­ern­ment is facing.

“Gov­ern­ment can­not adopt a ‘burn and shred’ pol­i­cy,’’ she added.