City Council Moves to Pick Up the Ball Trump Dropped

The New York City Council, responding to President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, has proposed a package of seven energy-efficiency bills that are well intentioned but, in the eyes of some environmental groups, in need of more work, Crain’s reports.

"Recent decisions by the federal government to withdraw our support from the Paris climate accord have called our country's efforts to fight climate change—a very real and dangerous phenomenon—into grave question," City Councilman Daniel Garodnick, a sponsor of one of the seven bills being considered, said at a hearing. "It's clear we can't rely on leadership in Washington to head off a global catastrophe."

With that in mind, Garodnick and several colleagues put together a package of legislation that aims to help the city reach its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. As opposed to less-dense areas of the country, where automobiles are the biggest carbon emitters, the main culprit in New York City is the energy used to heat, cool and power buildings. With that in mind, the proposed legislation aims to tighten the city's energy code, establish a task force to plot out future initiatives, encourage the use of solar power, and increase energy-use reporting requirements for landlords, including co-op and condo boards.

But environmental groups contend that the council's efforts made some glaring omissions and in some cases duplicated existing programs. "There is a fine line between creating legislation as quickly as we need it and rushing into policies that will lock us into ineffective action," said Abbey Brown of the Environmental Defense Fund.

In particular, advocates expressed concern over the council's focus on solar power at the expense of a broad range of energy-efficiency measures.

"We feel that these proposals need significantly more stakeholder input and refinement," said Christopher Halfnight of the Urban Green Council.