Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) is seen outside of the U.S. Capitol on July 15, 2022.
In early January 2021, the office of newly sworn-in freshman congressman Mondaire Jones began circulating a letter to the New York delegation, drumming up opposition to the proposed expansion of the Danskammer power plant in Newburgh. The fracked-gas facility was one of three liquefied natural gas power plants up for consideration in the New York area, which were meeting fierce opposition from activists. There was one in Astoria, Queens, another in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and the Newburgh plant.
As a candidate, Jones ran in opposition to the Danskammer expansion. Hurricane Sandy flooded the plant in 2012, taking it offline, and since 2014, it was revamped as a “peaker plant,” sending power to the electrical grid only during times of peak consumption. In 2019, Danskammer Energy floated a $500 million expansion plan to make it a full-time operation. The Newburgh plant was just across Jones’s district lines, technically in Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney’s district—but upstream of Jones’s, causing immediate pollution concerns, not to mention climate risks. There were troubles, too, about environmental racism: Over half of Newburgh is Black and Latino, and the population suffers from inordinately high rates of asthma. The LNG plant was certain to worsen the air pollution if it were expanded.
Opposing new fossil fuel infrastructure has been a common principle for New York Democrats; even Chuck Schumer led marches last year against the fracked-gas plant in Astoria. But Jones’s office soon found that their opposition to the plant had made a formidable enemy in Maloney.
“Almost immediately, we hear secondhand that Sean himself is making calls to other members of the delegation warning them not to sign this letter,” said Zach Fisch, then Jones’s chief of staff, in an interview.
Shortly thereafter, Fisch said, he got a call from Maloney’s office, insisting that they drop their campaign. “I got a call from someone on Maloney's staff, saying, effectively, ‘bury this or else,’” said Fisch. “We were still kind of inclined to find a way forward on it, but soon they had so successfully threatened everyone else in the delegation that it was just us, [Reps] AOC, and Bowman on the letter. It looked worse to send then not to send—so it got buried.” Just weeks earlier, Maloney had won a campaign to become the chairman of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Maloney is now running in a district with many of Jones’s voters. He’s in a contested primary against state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who is running as a supporter of the Green New Deal.
Danskammer wasn’t the first time Rep. Maloney had allied himself with the fossil fuel industry. In November 2014, Maloney was one of only 31 House Democrats, and one of only three New York congressional Democrats, to vote in favor of legislation allowing the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Three months later he was one of only 28 congressional Democrats, and the only Democratic member of the New York delegation, to vote with 238 Republicans in favor of the pipeline’s construction. The pipeline was ultimately nixed by President Biden. In 2018 he supported the Catskills Competitive Power Ventures gas-fired power plant, which was also plagued by scandal and aggressively opposed by activists.
Maloney’s support of the Danskammer plant emerged as an issue in a 2019 town hall he held for constituents, who pressed him on how he could justify its expansion while also supporting a Green New Deal. Activist opposition to the plant persisted through Maloney’s reelection campaign in 2020. In July of that month, environmentalists marched on his office in opposition. But he maintained his support of the project. Maloney pointed to an extremely questionable proposal the plant’s backers had put forward claiming that eventually it would be converted to green hydrogen, a plan that many pointed out has not been tried successfully anywhere in the country.
According to Fisch, Jones’s campaign against Danskammer was not well received. A recent article recounting the strained dynamics between Rep. Jones’s and Rep. Maloney’s offices in the River Newsroom, a local Hudson Valley publication, alleged that a Maloney staffer made that much very clear: ““My boss is livid, this power plant’s in our district, you’re putting us in a really tough position,” a Maloney staffer allegedly told Jones’s team,” the piece recounts.
“With certainty, that opposition came from Sean directly,” said Fisch.
Maloney’s office, meanwhile, denies his involvement. “These claims are patently false. Rep. Maloney’s record as an uncompromising defender of the planet and the Hudson Valley speaks for itself,” said spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg in a statement. “Rep. Maloney has always prioritized environmental concerns and the involvement of local voices when considering what is in the best interest of the Hudson Valley.”
After press time, Ehrenberg was even more adamant, adding that there was “no effort” from “anyone on [Maloney's] team to discourage Rep. Jones from pursuing the letter.”
During his time in congress, Maloney has accepted over $65,000 from fossil fuel companies and industry executives.
The statement notwithstanding, Maloney’s support of the plant was for naught. On October 27, 2021, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) denied an air permit for Danskammer. The DEC found that the plant’s expansion did not comply with the requirements of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), specifically the greenhouse gas limit.
The incident is notable in part because Maloney has sought to portray himself as an opponent of the fossil fuel industry. In a recent ad, he touts his passage of a 2019 bill that banned oil tankers from anchoring on the Lower Hudson River. But that incident far predates the Danskammer Plant fracas. During his time in congress, Maloney has accepted over $65,000 from fossil fuel companies and industry executives.
That Maloney ended up running in Jones’s redrawn district, pushing him into a race for the hotly contested open seat in New York’s 10th, has only added to the bad blood between the two congressmen. That move has placed Maloney in a bluer district, one where his openness to the fossil fuel industry might not be so well-received. As Times Herald-Record columnist Ken Hall wrote of Maloney in 2015, “You can’t beat Maloney from the right because he will always lean that way, sometimes for political reasons, more often because that’s his natural inclination.” The question remains if that will appeal to today’s left-leaning voters in New York’s 17th.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional comments from Rep. Maloney's staff.
