Court Opinion

ID: 9785294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:14:24.073624+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:15.071459
License: Public Domain

Read, J. (dissenting in part).
When the Legislature continued the Power for Jobs (PFJ) program in 2004, it created the new rebate benefit described in the majority opinion. Eligible *236participants were given a choice to extend their power contracts with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) or, alternatively, to opt out of the PFJ program and receive the rebate, calculated in accordance with a formula in the statute (see Economic Development Law § 189 [a] [5], as added by L 2004, ch 59, part T, § 3). When the Legislature again extended the PFJ program in 2005, eligible participants were afforded the same choice (see id., as amended by L 2005, ch 59, part I] § 2).
In 2006, the Legislature continued the PFJ program for another six months and created one option for all PFJ customers and a second option only available to manufacturers; specifically, (1) customers electing a contract extension became eligible to receive a newly created restitution benefit described in the majority opinion; and (2) manufacturers could cancel their contracts and receive the same type of rebate benefit made available by the 2004 and 2005 amendments (see id., as amended by L 2006, ch 645, § 3 [hereafter 2006 amendments or the statute]). The Legislature did not amend the formula for calculating the rebate.
The majority concludes that PFJ customers that are manufacturers, like petitioners, qualify under the 2006 amendments for both the restitution and the rebate benefits; and that the baseline for calculating rebates is, at the latest, 2005. Although I agree with the majority that petitioners were not required to elect between the restitution and rebate benefits, I conclude that the baseline for calculating the rebate is the year preceding contract cancellation.
The formula for calculating the rebate measures the former PFJ customer’s power costs against “thé average unit cost of electricity [it] paid during the final year of the contract for power allocated under phase four or five of the power for jobs program” (Economic Development Law § 189 [a] [5]). Economic Development Law § 189 (e) (2) and (3) state—and the majority emphasizes—that delivery of power under phases four and five ends “on or before December thirty-first, two thousand five.” Critically, however, other sections of the statute—which the majority does not mention—demonstrate that the Legislature, in fact, extended delivery of “power allocated under phase four or five” beyond that date. For example, the 2006 amendments provided that “the term of contracts for allocations under the fifth phase of the program shall in no case extend beyond June thirtieth, two thousand seven” (Economic Development Law § 189 [f], as amended by L 2006, ch 645, § 4 [emphasis added]). *237Thus, if a manufacturer withdraws its contract extension in order to take advantage of the rebate, “the final year of the contract for power allocated under phase four or five” is the year preceding contract cancellation.
This interpretation is consistent with the purpose of the rebate, and the way in which NYPA has administered it since 2004. The rebate was intended to guarantee that NYPA’s former PFJ customers would not pay more for electricity than they spent in their last year in the program. And, of course, a former customer might pay less if able to secure a better price in the open market from a non-NYPA energy supplier. The rebate option thus afforded former PFJ customers a stable, predictable (maximum) price.
Concluding that “the baseline year for purposes of calculation of the rebate is, at the latest, 2005,” the majority states that this is “no surprise” because the 2006 amendments were “motivated, in part, by a desire to ameliorate the high prices NYPA had charged under the contracts in the winter of 2006” (majority op at 234). This conclusion is contrary to the statutory language, as noted above. Moreover, the record demonstrates only that some PFJ participants were paying more than they would have paid their local utilities in the unusually warm winter of 2006 (Letter of Senator Wright, Bill Jacket, L 2006, ch 645, at 4).
Chief Judge Lippman and Judges Ciparick, Pigott and Jones concur with Judge Graffeo; Judge Read dissents in part in a separate opinion in which Judge Smith concurs.
Order, insofar as appealed from, affirmed, with costs.