Reinvent Albany Joins Environmental Advocates to Warn DEC: New Yorkers Are Paying for Crypto’s Massive Energy Bills

Earthjustice’s press release:

Albany, NY – Yesterday, Earthjustice and twenty seven environmental organizations submitted public comments to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation pertaining to the Department’s Draft General Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS) for Cryptocurrency Mining using Proof-of-Work (PoW) Authentication. The groups are urging the DEC to finalize the DGEIS as soon as possible and to work collaboratively with the State Legislature and sister agencies to address the affordability, energy, and environmental harms of PoW cryptocurrency mining. The DGEIS was released for public comment in May, with the comment period closing on September 25, 2025. 

Environmental groups agree that DEC’s DGEIS rightly recognizes the industry’s massive energy demands, the dangerous rise in greenhouse gas emissions, the resulting local air and water pollution, and the lack of transparency around its operations across New York. But they also stress that the DGEIS as written overlooks several serious threats related to the cryptomining industry:

• Most importantly, the DGEIS fails to capture how cryptomining’s massive energy use leaves residents and small businesses footing the bill. Miners pay extremely low electricity rates—sometimes as little as one-tenth of what New York households pay—effectively subsidized by New Yorkers through the disproportionately higher rates for households and small businesses.

• The final GEIS should further elaborate how state and local governments provide subsidies and tax breaks to incentivize the development of PoW cryptomining operations despite the large environmental and social costs associated with the facilities.

• And finally, the final GEIS should make note that these crypto plants bring hardly any longstanding jobs or economic development to the towns they move into. 

In addition to raising these critical concerns, environmental groups are urging the state to adopt a range of solutions to protect New Yorkers. These include affordability protections for everyday New Yorkers—such as implementing a tax on cryptominers, eliminating subsidies for cryptomining companies, and exploring protective electricity tariffs. More broadly, the state should establish stronger reporting requirements, advance permitting and regulatory reforms, and prioritize energy conservation and efficiency measures.

Click here or below to see the full comments.