Mayor Adams is trying to gut Local Law 97, New York City’s Green New Deal for buildings. Local Law 97 is designed to reduce emissions, improve air quality, create good green jobs and reduce energy costs. Mayor Adams has proposed regulations that create major loopholes and delays, jeopardizing these benefits.
JCAN NYC has joined with NYC coalition partners to demand that Mayor Adamas strengthen the proposed regulations. First, landlords who are in the two-year delay program should be required to make deeper cuts in the future to compensate for their delay. Second, the renewable energy credit loophole which allows big building owners to avoid retrofitting their buildings should be changed to only up to 30% over a building’s pollution limit. This is the amount the LL97 Advisory Council unanimously recommended, and Mayor Adams ignored.
Mary Krieger and Jack Gorman, JCAN NYC members, will be joining other JCAN NYC members to testify this Tuesday, October 24th at the Department of Buildings’ hearing. Read excerpts from their testimony explaining why they feel compelled to testify.
Mary Krieger’s testimony
My name is Mary Krieger. I am a member of the Jewish Climate Action Network NYC and It’s Easy Being Green.
I worked hard with JCAN NYC to pass LL97 because as Jews we are commanded to choose life. I am submitting testimony today because I am outraged that under Mayor Adams, the Building Department is proposing rules which will undermine Local Law 97.
As a retired teacher and grandmother, I worry that New York is no longer a safe, healthy place for my former students and granddaughter. Climate change brought on by the pollution LL97 is designed to limit has wreaked havoc with the weather. Hurricane Sandy imperiled one of my medically fragile students when his home was flooded and was uninhabitable. Torrential downpours trap people in basement apartments and on flooded roads. And this summer my asthmatic husband had to breathe polluted air from wildfires triggered by droughts. How do the parents of the asthmatic children in the county with the highest rate of asthma in the nation, The Bronx, feel when their children struggle to breathe because of the additional pollution from fires triggered by climate change?
Climate change is real. It’s already here and Mayor Adams can’t allow it to get worse.
Jack Gorman’s testimony
My name is Jack Gorman and I live and work in the Bronx. I am a member of the Bronx Climate and Environmental Justice Network, a group that has brought together climate-concerned organizations from across the Bronx.
When I was an intern in pediatrics at what is now the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital in Washington Heights, I was regularly confronted with young children gasping for air from asthma attacks. Many of those children were severely ill and required emergency treatment and hospitalization. I watched fear-stricken parents sitting by their children's bedsides, praying for their recovery.
As is well known, the Bronx has the highest asthma rates in New York State. Only years after my internship did I learn that the major reason for these sky-high rates of respiratory illness is air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels. I vowed to do all I can to ensure that Bronx children have cleaner air to breathe so that they can avoid these devastating asthma attacks.
For that reason, I applauded Local Law 97 when it was passed in 2019. Here is the road to cleaning up our city's air and meeting our climate commitments. Now, however, I am dismayed to see that Local Law 97 could be significantly weakened by the proposed regulatory rules. I am urging you on behalf of the children of the Bronx and all over our city to strengthen these rules so that Local Law 97 is fully implemented and enforced.
I know you will hear from wealthy real estate interests and building owners that it is too expensive to fully implement Local Law 97, but you know that this is patently untrue. Local Law 97 is practical and enforceable. We need it to save lives. Please make sure we have a strong and enforceable Local Law 97.