FORESTBURGH, NY — Nassau County Executive and Republican candidate for governor of New York Bruce Blakeman joined local Sullivan County lawmakers to speak out against a solar development on Thursday, July 30. 

Blakeman was joined by local leaders including State Senator and congressional candidate Peter Oberacker and Assemblyman and State Senate candidate Chris Tague. The event focused on a solar development that will be spread across the towns of Forestburgh and Thompson. 

The planned solar development, which would span over 1200 acres, would generate up to 200 megawatts and would also include a 100 megawatt battery storage facility. Residents have serious concerns about the environmental impact of the development, with some citing devastation to forests and farmland.

“We're told that this project is temporary, but forest cleared today won't mature again in our lifetime. Wildlife doesn't simply return because the lease expires. Once you industrialize the landscape like this, you simply do not press undo,” said Chris Titus, a local farmer and biologist whose family has been in the area since 1830. “Some things, once they're gone, do not come back. This isn't about rejecting renewable energy. It's about rejecting the idea that rural communities should be expected to sacrifice their forests, their farmland, and their character simply because someone has decided it was convenient.”

Blakeman took the opportunity to speak out against what he called the “green energy scam.”

“We're going to talk about the green energy scam, that is Kathy Hochul's scam on all the ratepayers in the state of New York,” he said.

The scam, according to Blakeman, is this: renewable energy mandates from the New York state government are driving up energy prices, and making New York State unaffordable for many people.

“Every time you pay your bill, a big portion of it goes to the green energy scam, which is a fund that Kathy Hochul has to invest in science projects that produce very little energy, and they're very very expensive,” Blakeman said.

According to data from nyserda.ny.gov, New York State currently has 276,507 solar projects installed, producing a total capacity of 8,054 megawatts of electricity. The amount of solar capacity installed has increased year over year for the past decade, with 1,280 megawatts of capacity installed in 2025. 

Blakeman said that solar developments—like the one planned for Sullivan County—are destroying valuable farm land, and that they would be inefficient in producing energy.

“The solar farms here in New York State…are taking rich farmland out of service and hurting our agricultural industry, which is one of the most important industries in the state of New York,” Blakeman said. “That's one problem. The other problem is that they don't produce very much energy.”

Blakeman said that solar energy makes sense in some places (like his Alma Mater of Arizona State University) due to the arid landscape and the amount of sunshine they get. However, he said, it doesn't make sense in more unpredictable climates like Upstate New York.

“I went to Arizona State University. There, it probably makes sense. It's over 300 days of sunshine. It's strong sun, and it's in the middle of the desert. It's not on farmland. That might make sense, but here in New York State, it's insane, and we'll never get this farmland back. We're going to upset the wildlife in that area. We are going to upset the ecology of that area,” Blakeman said. “[We’re] taking that rich farmland and just destroying it.”

New York State has previously responded to similar claims from the federal government that New York was using prime farmland for solar developments. In an 11 page article sent to the federal government by The Department of Public Service, Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Department of Agriculture and Markets and the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA), the state claims that very little prime farmland is being used, and that claims to the contrary are “misinformation and disinformation.”

“New York is a national leader in farmland preservation and protecting its environment from waste disposal impacts. The protection of our rural communities and the long-term security of our food supply are of the utmost importance. New York is a proud agricultural state, a national leader in dairy production and home to some of the most comprehensive environmental and agricultural protections in the nation,” the letter says. 

“Despite misinformation and disinformation circulation across various digital channels, renewable energy development is not taking over New York's ‘best farmland.’ Data and the facts show ORES-permitted solar facilities overlap with only 0.13% of the state's prime farmland,” it reads.

Blakeman also spoke out against the state's offshore wind energy projects, which he lumped in with other renewable energy efforts as part of the “green energy scam,” saying that they don’t work, and that when they do work “[they] produce very little energy, add very little to the grid, and it's very expensive,” Blakeman said. 

According to NYSERDA, South Fork Wind, the only currently operating offshore wind farm, generates 132 megawatts of electricity and powers 70,000 homes on Long Island. According to the Long Island Power Authority, customers pay approximately $1.58 per month for South Fork Wind. Other offshore projects are planned to produce 810 Megawatts at the Empire Wind 1 farm, and 924 Megawatts at the Sunrise Wind farm.

In closing his remarks, Blakeman said that if elected, he would end these mandates.

“I'm up here with these good people because I want to pledge to them when I become governor, this is all going to change,” Blakeman said. “I am going to stop this…The green energy scam is over.”

The Solution? Fracking

Blakeman suggested that if New York wants affordable energy, the state should reverse its ban on fracking and harvest the natural gas deposits along the southern tier. 

“The reality is that solar farms in upstate New York are not big energy producers,” Blakeman said. “On the southern tier of New York, we have one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world, and yet Kathy Hochul won't let us extract that natural gas, which is abundant, and it would increase the supply to bring our utility costs down. And I will cut your utility bills in half because I will extract that natural gas, and I will get rid of the green energy scam. And you won't have to pay every month for a solar farm here in Forestburg or any other place in New York State because it is a scam.”

Blakeman also said that while New York state prohibits fracking, it purchases and uses natural gas from states where fracking is allowed, like Pennsylvania.

“Here's the real insanity of everything that I've been talking about for the last couple of minutes, Kathy Hochul won't extract that natural gas from the southern tier of New York,” Blakeman said. “We're losing that tax revenue. We're losing that energy supply. We're losing those jobs. But the worst thing about it, she's buying that natural gas from Pennsylvania.”

When asked if Blakeman had concerns about the destruction of land to access natural gas deposits, he said that fracking rigs would not take up the same amount of land as solar farms, and that local communities want fracking, as opposed to solar developments.

“Natural gas is underground, so in most instances you won't see anything,” Blakeman said. “And the difference is the people in the communities, the local communities in the southern tier, they want to extract natural gas because they need the economic development.”

Local Control

Blakeman said that state green energy mandates restrict local government decision making, and that if he were governor he would involve local governments in these decisions.

“There should be local control over projects of this size. I come from local government. I come from town and county government. They should have a say in what happens to the land use in their communities,” Blakeman said. 

In an interview with the River Reporter, Blakeman went a step further to say that he was against mandates from the state in a more general sense.

“I'm totally against the state mandating anything to local government,” Blakeman said. “I think local government should have a seat at the table. They should be partners with the state in coming to decisions that make sense for their communitiesI come from local government, and I don't like it when we get mandates from the state that have nothing to do with what's really important in our communities, and in fact, sometimes they hurt our communities.”

Oberacker supported this idea of more actively involving local governments in decisions about energy, and Oberacker also said that energy mandates restrict local control.

“He laid out a plan that is based not only in common sense but country sense,” Oberacker said. “Country sense means that it's localized…In a nutshell, these solar arrays, and they're not farms, they are solar arrays, do nothing more than take the authority away from our local government and the decision making from those that are here. It's an abomination.”

Chris Tague said that when he debated the bill in the Assembly, he knew that problems would arise with local control. Tague characterized the state’s renewable energy mandates and the siting process as a “farce.”

“Not one person, not one person in these communities is going to benefit from the taking of their land,” Tague said. “You know one thing that my colleagues didn't say, and I've but I've heard Bruce say it several times. Not only does it hurt the environment and our agricultural system, but you know what that really hurts is the New York State economy, because still the number one economy in rural upstate New York is agriculture, and when you take away from that, you're hurting everybody.”