Delivered every Monday by 10 a.m., New York & New Jersey Energy is your guide to the week’s top energy news and policy in Albany and Trenton.

Delivered every Monday by 10 a.m., New York & New Jersey Energy is your guide to the week’s top energy news and policy in Albany and Trenton.

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By RY RIVARD and MARIE J. FRENCH 

Good morning and welcome to the Monday edition of the New York & New Jersey Energy newsletter. We'll take a look at the week ahead and look back on what you may have missed last week.

PUBLIC RENEWABLES PUSH FAILS — POLITICO’s Marie J. French: A sweeping measure to reshape the renewable energy landscape in New York with fierce grassroots backing from socialist organizers failed to make it across the finish line this year. The “Build Public Renewables Act” passed the Senate last week but didn't make it to the floor of the Assembly before lawmakers left early Saturday, despite a concerted, no-holds-barred social media and call-in campaign by supporters to pressure Speaker Carl Heastie and shore up support. The measure would have granted NYPA broad ability to develop and own new renewable projects. Backers said NYPA’s involvement would better enable the state to meet the renewable energy mandates passed in 2019 and questioned why private companies should reap profits from the state’s goals.

“We are taking a bold step that is absolutely necessary to confront and mitigate the climate crisis. We cannot continue to leave our response to the climate crisis in the hands of profit seeking private corporations,” Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) said during debate on the bill Wednesday. Opponents, including renewable energy developers and owners of merchant power plants, also pressed their case as the session continued into overtime Friday, and funded digital ads on the issue. Some labor unions opposed the measure, including one representing many NYPA workers, while others took a neutral stance after amendments.

“There are barriers to wind and solar projects getting built in New York, but this bill doesn’t solve them,” said Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy, which represents private renewable developers. “Setting NYPA and private clean energy developers on an unfair playing field is just simply not going to help us reach our clean energy goals.”

— Among the energy and environmental measures that passed before lawmakers called it a wrap? A bill to enable utility ownership of thermal heating systems like geothermal district heating loops got the OK. The late-introduced measure was an easy win for environmental groups, labor and utilities, with an incremental step toward one option to decarbonize buildings. A more limited bill to update the state’s building codes also passed. The highest profile energy bill that passed in the final days was the moratorium on some digital currency mining at fossil fuel plants, which the industry continues to misrepresent as a broader ban on their business.

But by and large, lawmakers failed to implement any major piece of the state’s draft climate plan or tackle in a meaningful way the two largest sources of emissions: buildings and transportation. They also didn’t act to address waste issues in a broad-based manner, leaving Sen. Todd Kaminsky’s biggest priority on the sidelines as the Nassau County Democrat closed out his final session.

Next year, lawmakers will face a bigger test of their political will to enact policies needed to begin a society-wide transition off fossil fuels if they hope to achieve the state’s ambitious climate goals. The state’s draft climate plan will be finalized at the end of this year, and if Democratic lawmakers don’t want to leave it on the drawing board, they’ll have to navigate passing policies like the ban on fossil fuels in new construction in the face of concerted opposition from industry, businesses and labor in the 2023 legislative session.

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Here's what we're watching this week:

MONDAY — The Pinelands Preservation Alliance, New Jersey Conservation Foundation, New York-New Jersey Trail Conference and Highlands Coalition are launching the statewide #FixOurParks campaign to combat threats to public spaces in New Jersey.

TUESDAY — The first New York gubernatorial debate with Gov. Kathy Hochul, Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi will be broadcast on CBS New York.

WEDNESDAY — The New York Board of Public Utilities has a regular board meeting, in person and online, 10 a.m.

— Trade union representatives and environmental groups hold a press conference in support of the draft scoping plan, organized by NY Renews, 10 a.m.

THURSDAY — The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities will hold a virtual public hearing about its budget for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, 12:30 p.m.

— Community choice energy is being eyed in Canton.

— In an op-ed, Robert Duffy, the former lieutenant governor, worries about energy reliability.

— A dispute over a “possible cancer cluster”in Colonia continues. (The state has said the number of cancer cases there is not unexpected, people concerned about the cases say the state has not done tests to find the cause of cancers.)

— Bear encountershave more than doubled this year.

— Op-ed: Plastic bag industry favors plastic bags.

New Jersey environmental officialsbegan rolling out a proposed environmental justice rule that will restrict certain heavy industrial development in about half of the state considered to have “overburdened” communities.

Despite both the Assembly and Senate passing similar, but not identical, measures targeting a class of pesticides harmful to pollinators and other wildlife, the “Birds and Bees Act” did not make it through.