BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Over the course of the 32 meetings from early 2020 to late 2022, New York's Climate Action Council developed a scoping plan to meet the state's energy and emission reduction goals.

Phillips Lytle head of energy and sustainability Dennis Elsenbeck was one of only three members to vote against the final plan.

"During the Climate Action Council meetings, I'm not sure we looked at it realistically in terms of whether not you could achieve these type of goals in the timeframe that we were given," Elsenbeck said.

In his dissent, Elsenbeck argued the recommendations failed to leverage economic development opportunities and chances to help disadvantaged communities and questioned the readiness of the power grid.

"We made a lot of assumptions or at least the membership made a lot of assumptions that the electric system was actually prepared to become an electrified economy and that by any stretch of the imagination was not true," he said.

In a July report, the Public Service Commission suggested the state is unlikely to reach its legislatively-mandated goal of 70% renewable electricity by 2030. The governor has since expressed openness to flexibility as critics have called for the state to push back deadlines or amend the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act entirely.

"To be honest, I give the governor a lot of credit that she is standing up and saying lets revisit, let's really look at the climate objectives realistically," he said.

Elsenbeck is attending next week's energy summit in Syracuse and believes it is a good start toward still aggressive but, in his opinion, more feasible and strategic plans and goals, including better engagement of the private sector.

"I'm optimistic if there's more listening than speaking," he said. "If there's more speaking than listening then I'm less opitimistic."

Elsenbeck believes if there are more open conversations about the real costs of achieving goals, private sector investors will be willing to make strategic investments, pulling the burden away from taxpayers and ratepayers to implement the CLCPA.