New York Pols Want to Use Private Insurance As A Cudgel Against Fossil Fuels
A new proposal in the New York Legislature would prohibit insurance companies from doing business in the state if they insure businesses that make over 10 percent of their money from fossil fuels.
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New York Pols Want to Use Private Insurance As A Cudgel Against Fossil Fuels
This is outrageous abuse of the law and the power of elected officials. Imagine if your state legislature decided it didn't like single-family homes and outlawed the insuring of them by private companies. That’s what New York State politicians are proposing to do to perfectly legal natural gas, for instance. They want to use their power over private insurance companies as a cudgel against other private companies.
A new proposal in the New York Legislature would prohibit insurance companies from doing business in the state if they insure businesses that make over 10 percent of their money from fossil fuels. The bill, however, could backfire, encouraging insurers to vacate New York entirely rather than leave the lucrative industry.
"Within five years of the effective date of this article," the billmandates, the "superintendent shall require any insurer doing business in the state to certify that they have divested" from "any company that derives ten percent or more of revenue from exploration, extraction, processing, exporting, transporting, and any other significant action with respect to oil, natural gas, coal, or any byproduct thereof."
Additionally, the law would force insurers to divest from any projectsthat are "intended to facilitate or expand" any "significant action with respect to oil, natural gas, coal, or any byproduct thereof."
New York is not the only state currently attempting to implement backdoor restrictions against fossil fuels by warding off insurers. Since last year, the Connecticut Legislature has debated a proposal to enact a fee against insurance companies for covering fossil fuel projects.
These pieces of legislation aim to kneecap fossil fuel companies by undercutting their funding. The New York bill threatens would-be insurers of fossil fuel projects—for instance, pipeline construction and natural gas power plant production—with economic exclusion from the state.
"There's no real magic bullet to stopping the oil and gas beast," Pete Sikora, a climate director at New York Communities for Change, told New York Focus, "but to the extent that there is, it could be insurance….No insurance, no projects."
"Insurance is a very powerful cudgel," added State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D–Manhattan), one of the proposal's legislative sponsors.
This sort of abuse, if these despicable tyrants get away with this, will only get worse. And, they do hate your single-family homes, as they want everyone stuck in 15-minute cities living in multi-family dwellings where we can all be controlled. So, don’t be surprised when some corrupt pol comes along and says "nice home you have there, too bad it can’t be insured."