Energy Policy in the New York Area and its Impact on the Society (Case Study Sample)

Public Policy
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Introduction
There are numerous public policy examples and types, the outcomes and positions of which play an indispensable role in shaping policymakers all over the New York City area and in the entire United States. Public policy examples and types have not only shape policymakers in these areas continually, but are also shaped by these lawmakers in conjunction with institutions such as courts through simultaneous law passing and rule prioritization. With this in mind, research is conducted to explore a public policy of personal choice that has direct impacts on the New York City’s local government. In particular, this paper comprehensively assesses the energy policy in the New York City area, along with analyzing the negative and positive effects that the policy has on the operational budget of the local government.
The Energy Policy
The energy policy of the New York City area addresses issues pertinent to the generation and distribution as well as large scale and small scale consumption of energy within this area. This is by building energy saving codes, and setting standards for gas mileage, thereby ensuring prosperity and security of New York City residents. According to City of New York (2004), the city the world’s hub for major communication, corporate, and financial operations, a reputation that requires the area to have reliable electricity or energy source. For this reason, it is through the energy policy of the New York City area that the City is assured of affordable, dependable, and clean energy solutions that are responsive to environmental sustainability. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (n.d) asserts that, through the environmental sustainability initiatives advocated in Bloomberg’s sustainability plan for addressing energy issues in New York City, environmental risks are abridged, ensuring that the City stays in the vanguard of energy resources conservation and environmental sustainability.
The energy policy in this area, which is an integral component of the national energy policy contained in the 2005 federal Energy Policy Act, also addresses challenges and issues emanating from nuclear energy. Examples of nuclear challenges that the policy addresses include the disposal and storage of nuclear fuel and waste. Also, the policy is designed to partially address and direct the response of the City to climate change and the proliferation of new clear weapons (Bradford, 2012) that are a great threat to the security residents of the area and those of other neighboring areas. Besides regulating nuclear energy, the energy policy also serves as a comprehensive legislative measure for the local government to control the use of fossil fuels and foreign energy resources. This is in compliance with the requirements of the national government to protect its climate, economy, environment, and national security from the harmful effects and vast risks associated with these types of energy sources. In that regard, the energy policy serves as the platform upon which the City administration promotes and spearheads the move towards using renewable energy resources.
The energy policy of the New York City area reflects the goals of the state, federal, and global energy policy goals, which are primarily intended for clean and economic energy. One of these goals is to ensure that buildings and households in the area are more energy efficient and economic (City of New York, 2015; Levine & Richmond, 2012). The other goal includes the initiation of recovery act reserves geared towards cleaner, greener, and more affordable energy. The energy policy also focuses on bringing the City to the prestigious vanguard of climate and environmental sustainability as the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (n.d) attests to. Other goals that energy lawmakers seek to achieve under the energy policy include creating and applying more vociferous efficiency standards for domestic and industrial appliances as well as for vehicles. By achieving these goals, New York City is able to not only augment the reliability of the energy resources it is graced with, but also meet its increasing energy demands. This way, the City places itself in a better position to facilitate its operations as an international hub, address pertinent environmental concerns, and drive its economic growth.
Another essential characteristic of the energy policy is that the local government’s effort to create investments and channel funds towards encouraging diversified and safer supply and transmission of energy. In other words, the energy policy is a core element of the operational budget of the local government of the New York City area. City of New York (2004) declares that such a portfolio of investments enables the City administration to reduce capacity and energy costs for New Yorkers, along with establishing a competitive electricity market. In that regard, the policy has provisions advocating partnerships with local corporations and other industry stakeholders. The partnerships help the authorities to subsidize energy for residents, along with providing financial and technical support and utilities that assist in automating and streamlining the implementation of subsidiary energy programs.
Impacts of the Energy Policy on Local Government’s Operational Budget
One of the positive impacts of the energy policy is the attainment of a more sustainable environment characterized by less detrimental climate change as one of the initial goals of environmental sustainability. This is because the energy policy fosters drastic movement towards using renewable energy resources by reducing reliance on fossil fuel energy. The benefits that New York City reaps from using renewable energy include minimized air pollution emanating fossil fuel emissions increased energy source diversity, and lesser land degradation as a result of coal mining (City of New York, 2004). These benefits cut numerous costs from the local government’s operational budget. These include costs associated with pollution and degradation control and minimization, costs of compensating for the health safety of mine workers, and the cost associated with the destabilization of harmful effects of climate change. Bradford (2012) concurs with this by stating that there are ongoing efforts in the entire state of New York through the energy policy to select and implement procedures for benefit maximization and cost minimization in climate protection under climate change policies.
The other positive impact of the energy policy is that it sets the stage for the materialization of the goals of the ongoing sustainable low-carbon initiative in the City. The energy policy sets efficiency standards that regulate the emission of carbon content into the atmosphere by automobiles, industries, and power plants as Bradford (2012) and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (n.d) record. By minimizing the release of gaseous carbon and sulfur pollutants, greenhouse effects, global warming, and the formation heat islands are diminished. Consequently, the costs of carbon sequestration, pollutant filtration, and reversing the effects of global warming are eliminated from the operational budget of the New York City local government. Other positive impacts of the energy policy...