State must help localities, developers find compromise

In the dispute between Schoharie County towns and solar farm developers, we are seeing the lofty goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act slam up against hard financial realities (“Towns dispute tax template,” May 5).

I’m all in favor of towns getting a good share of the profits accruing from their sunshine, and it worries me that the solar developers claim that “reversing the tax system at this point could bring lots of projects to a standstill.” I believe recent state budgets included funding to help localities overcome these losses. Maybe that funding could be increased and extended.

We need to keep the urgency of our need for more renewable energy in mind. The New York Times recently reported that New York state’s electricity rates are up about 15 percent largely because the war in Ukraine has driven up the price of natural gas. The solution is, of course, more wind and solar power.

It seems clear to me that it is in our ultimate best interest to facilitate the work of the renewablepower developers. That is going to entail the expeditious resolution of the conflicts such as the one occurring in Schoharie County.

Don Porter Schenectady