From the HEAT Act to Repealing the 100-Foot Rule: New Legislation Impacting Energy Utilities

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Richard Rifkin, Esq.*

September 22, 2025

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Introduction

At the end of the 2025 legislative session, the New York State Legislature passed a pared-down version of the NY Home Energy Affordable Transition Act (NY HEAT Act). It will next be sent to Governor Hochul, who must decide whether to approve the bill, thereby enacting it into law, or to veto the bill, thereby making its enactment in 2025 highly unlikely. However, significant revisions were made during the session, resulting in a narrower version of the bill. This has caused some confusion as to what exactly the bill as passed includes. The following explains the history of the bill and its practical effects, if enacted.

The HEAT Act

The New York Home Energy Affordable Transition Act, or NY HEAT Act (A.4870/S.4158) was introduced early in the legislative session.¹ Its purpose was to “ensure that state regulation and oversight of gas utilities provides for…emission reduction mandates set forth in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act…” (CLCPA).² That law, enacted in 2019, requires that New York achieve net-zero gas emissions by 2050, with interim targets in earlier years. The HEAT Act would have made significant changes in the laws affecting gas utility usage in buildings in service to the state’s climate goals.

Among the HEAT Act’s provisions were giving the New York State Public Service Commission “all powers necessary and proper” to achieve the goals of the CLCPA; authorizing the Commission to develop a plan to protect all residential customers from “having energy burdens greater than 6% of their household income”; limiting or discontinuing gas service where necessary to meet the goals of the CLCPA; precluding continuation of gas service following the demolition of a structure owned by a customer; and precluding the expansion of gas distribution infrastructure to an area where it was not previously available. All these provisions were removed before the last version of the bill was passed.

Legislation to Repeal the "100-Foot Rule"

The last version of the bill (A.8888/S.8417),³ which passed in the state Assembly on June 16, is much narrower. If enacted, it would repeal what is known as the “100-foot rule.” This rule currently requires utility service providers to cover the cost of creating a new gas or electricity connection up to the first one hundred feet from the utility transmission lines to the building.⁴ Utility service providers charge existing customers (known as “ratepayers”) for maintenance of utility infrastructure, which includes the installation of these new transmission lines. This functionally distributes the utility costs among current ratepayers with the benefit going to the customer with the new connection, who would only be responsible for covering the costs of new service lines beyond one hundred feet from the main line. The bill’s sponsors claim that this statutory requirement costs existing ratepayers “hundreds of millions of dollars each year.”⁵

If enacted, the bill would amend the state’s Public Service Law and Transportation Corporations Law so that gas service providers would no longer be required to cover the cost of the first one hundred feet of new gas connections. In other words, the property owner would be required to pay for the new gas connection. The bill would not impact new electricity connections. The requirement that utility providers cover the cost of the first one hundred feet of new electricity connections would remain intact. The bill’s co-sponsors have argued that repealing the one-hundred-foot rule for gas services would reduce overall costs for ratepayers.⁶

The bill that passed also contained one important change from the HEAT Act regarding the continued use of gas transmission lines. Initially, the HEAT Act would have granted the Public Service Commission the authority to “order the curtailment or discontinuance of the use of gas for any customer, group of customers, or section of the gas distribution system, where the commission has determined that such curtailment or discontinuance is reasonably required to implement state energy policy.” This provision was not included in the bill that passed (A.8888/S.8417). The new bill provided that, upon receiving an application for gas service, a utility corporation or municipality “shall be obligated to provide gas service to such building….”⁷

We now await the action of Governor Hochul.⁸

Notes