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KINGSTON, N.Y. — U.S. Rep. Josh Riley has joined a chorus of objections to a planned solar installation on Columbia County farmland.
Riley’s push follows one launched by Sen. Michelle Hinchey, both Democratic lawmakers who support measures to combat climate change and are objecting to plans for the solar installation in Copake.
“The whole community pulled together–residents, farmers, small business owners, community leaders, Democrats, Republicans–everyone is trying to stop this thing,” Riley said in a speech during a House Agriculture Committee hearing this week. “But a bunch of unelected bureaucrats in Albany are letting the project plow ahead. They’re overruling our neighbors and handing beautiful Upstate farmland to an out-of-state corporate developer so they can pave it over and install Chinese solar panels.”
Proposed by Chicago-based Hecate Energy, the Shepherd’s Run project would convert roughly 215 acres of productive farmland in Copake into a 42-megawatt industrial solar facility, officials said.
The New York Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) issued draft permit conditions in November 2025, allowing the project to move ahead despite 17 local zoning violations and overwhelming opposition from the Town of Copake, the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, and local residents, Riley’s office said.
At the hearing, Riley pressed U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to work together at the federal level to protect farmland and towns like Copake.
Riley’s advocacy is part of his broader work to protect Upstate agriculture, his office said, adding that he has sponsored legislation to stop foreign adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party from buying up American farmland.
Hinchey has pushed against the Copake project, citing agricultural and environmental concerns.
Following a site visit in early August 2023, Hinchey and state Sen. Pete Harckham sent a letter to the Executive Director of the New York State Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES), “underscoring the potential adverse environmental and agricultural impacts of Shepherd’s Run, a proposed 60-megawatt solar development seeking approval in the Town of Copake in rural Columbia County by Chicago-based Hecate Energy LLC,” Hinchey’s office has said.
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