Title: 30 Issues in 30 Days: Climate and Energy Policy

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we continue our 30 Issues in 30 Days election series. Let the corporate media focus mostly on the horse race. We continue on New York Public Radio to center the issues that will affect all our lives and compare the candidates on those. For mayor of New York and governor of New Jersey, most of all those two. Today, it's issue 22, New York City's climate change law as an issue in the mayoral race.

It's an issue because a law the city council passed in 2019 requires many buildings, whether they're co-ops, condos, rentals, or commercial buildings, to cut their carbon emissions by 40% by the year 2030. That's because, did you know this? Buildings are by far the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the city, way more than cars, for example, which is what a lot of people think are first with respect to greenhouse gases. For many buildings, this will be very expensive. For example, replacing old boilers in the basement that burn fossil fuels for the whole building with electric heat pumps in every unit.

According to Crain's New York Business, Curtis Sliwa opposes the law altogether and says if elected, he would try to get it repealed. Andrew Cuomo, according to Crain's, told a private meeting of co-op board presidents that he's open to modifying the law's penalties. Zohran Mamdani has recently softened his position from vowing to enforce the law by "taking on the real estate industry" to promising, more recently, according to Crain's, to have the city buy heat pumps and other things in bulk and then give them to many buildings for free. Let's take a closer look with Caroline Spivack, Crain's reporter covering climate, energy, and transportation. Caroline, great to have you on for your reporting on this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Caroline: Hi, Brian. Good to be here.

Brian: Let's go over some basics. I see the stat that New York City buildings account for about 70% of the city's greenhouse gas emissions. That's quite a number considering people usually think about cars and fossil fuel burning power plants and things like that, agriculture. Is it that the city is just so dense with buildings that they rise here to number one?

Caroline: Yes, that's part of it, and a lot of the properties in New York City are older. Because of that, we have a lot of dirtier fossil fuel heating, like boilers and basements. Those are expensive to retrofit, so a lot of the newer, more energy-efficient, more carbon-focused technology is expensive, and so the priority hasn't been to replace older, dirtier technology in a lot of these properties.

Brian: Local Law 97 was passed by city council in 2019 and signed by Mayor de Blasio. It applies to buildings with more than 25,000 square feet of floor space. I know that's like 50,000 buildings in the city, but can you say roughly how big an apartment building has to be to be included in the law by that measure? How many stories typically?

Caroline: It depends. It's anything from, I'd say, like a moderate-sized brick apartment complex that you'd pass by to a skyscraper. That could be a commercial skyscraper that you'd see in the heart of Midtown, to a more moderate-sized, say, seven-story apartment complex that you'd see in Queens.

Brian: The law had several benchmarks to hit in its time frame in 2024, 2030, and 2050. What were buildings supposed to do by last year, 2024?

Caroline: 2024 is really the first year that this law takes effect in terms of property owners having to actually monitor their carbon emissions, and then, as of this year, begin to report that to the Department of Buildings. Last year was really when some, I'd say, more modest carbon reductions need to take place for buildings. For a lot of properties, that meant replacing lighting with more efficient LED lighting, making sure their windows were insulated. Some pretty moderate things to just get that start to chip away at those carbon emissions for buildings, but the real challenge, the real big retrofits are really going to start happening now as people are looking towards complying with that 40% cut by 2030, as you mentioned.

Brian: There are also more aggressive penalties, as I understand, that take place in 2030 if you're not in compliance. Do you have some of the numbers on those?

Caroline: Yes. For every metric ton of carbon emissions that a property owner exceeds their limit, and each limit is going to be different for the property, it's calculated per property, it'll be a fee of $268 per that metric ton of carbon over the limit. That can quickly add up to tens of thousands to even millions of dollars, depending on the building. Say, if we're talking about a commercial skyscraper that's over its emissions, that's a lot of carbon, that can translate to a lot of money.

Brian: What are landlords and co-ops and condo boards saying about the 2030 deadline and penalties? How varied are their concerns or support?

Caroline: I think across the board, what I hear when I talk to property owners is that they understand the law, they agree with the spirit of it, but they feel like they need more help and more time. They feel like they need more financial support, especially owners of low- and middle-income housing. They feel that they just need more financial support, more assistance from the city to get a hold of the technologies.

Some of these technologies are very expensive when it comes to, say, upgrading a boiler to an electric heat pump. That's something that can cost tens of thousands of dollars. If you have a lot of properties, that quickly adds up. What I've heard is that they understand why this is a law, they believe in the spirit of it, but they need more assistance from the city to help them get to the finish line.

Brian: If you're just joining us, folks, we're in our 30 Issues in 30 Days election series, issue 22, Local Law 97 regarding climate change as an issue in the New York City mayoral race. This is also our Health and Climate Tuesday section of the show. Many of you know we do a health and/or climate-oriented segment every Tuesday, at least every Tuesday, to make sure that with all the other things that are always going on in the world, that those topics don't get left on the side. We have Health & Climate Tuesdays every Tuesday on The Brian Lehrer Show.

For today, it's this edition of 30 Issues in 30 Days. Again, something that's not getting a lot of publicity elsewhere, the candidate's position on this climate change law that's going to mean a lot for co-ops and condos and landlords and commercial building owners in New York City. Now let's compare the candidates with my guest, Caroline Spivack from Crain's. I read in The New York Times that Mamdani had said earlier this year that he would enforce Local Law 97 by "taking on the real estate industry" in the pursuit of climate justice. He said climate justice. Your recent story was about Mamdani saying he would help landlords, help them to foot the bill. Help them to foot the bill, how?

Caroline: I think it's important to note that Mamdani has pivoted his messaging on this issue a bit. Like you said earlier in the year, there was more of a focus in his rhetoric on enforcement. Now he's turning more towards, "What are some policies I can put forward to potentially help property owners that are trying to comply with this law?" One thing he has said is right now, New York City runs something called the NYC Accelerator. It's basically a program that provides free guidance to landlords on how to retrofit their properties.

It doesn't give them the free support on actually doing those retrofits, but it gives them a play-by-play of here's how you do this. Mamdani's thinking is, "Why don't we expand the scope of the NYC Accelerator to potentially have the city utilize its bulk buying power, purchase some of these costly technologies, like heat pumps, and then dole that out to property owners who say they need financial assistance to make up the gap, so to speak, when it comes to helping them pay for some of these upgrades?"

Brian: The headline, and I realize reporters like you don't usually write the headlines, but the headline in Crain's says, "Help Landlords Foot the Bill." Is the plan any different for co-ops and condos, where, of course, the individual apartments are owned by individuals and families?

Caroline: Yes. The thinking would really be for all property owners, whether it's co-op, condo, or commercial building, residential building, any owner really that has to comply with this, the idea would be that they would be able to go to this NYC Accelerator and potentially tap into new technologies that the city would be procuring.

Brian: You report that Mamdani cited this program as already underway in NYCHA buildings, public housing, distributing heat pumps. Can you talk more about that?

Caroline: Yes. The New York City Housing Authority currently has a program underway where it is purchasing heating and cooling equipment, basically, and it is installing those in its buildings across the city in units for its tenants. It's a program that Mamdani has pointed to as a jumping-off point, as something that he would like to see happen for Local Law 97. It's not clear if he would want the city to be involved in implementation of these technologies and equipment that the city could potentially procure under his potential administration. The idea basically is just that it would be a similar effort and that the city would be helping to dole out technologies that it would purchase.

Brian: Listeners, we can take some phone calls. Maybe somebody listening right now is on a co-op or condo board, and you want to tell your building story, or if you're a landlord, what would you like from the next mayor with respect to Local Law 97? Maybe you're an environmental climate activist and you're like, "No, don't give them a break. Just make them do it."

If you are an environmental or climate-specific activist and you have a solution to help the buildings, to help the residents, really, of New York City afford this conversion, but still meet the details of the law to help with saving the climate, 212-433-WNYC. This happens every membership drive. This is our on-air number, not the one where you would donate money. 888-376-9692, if you're a co-op board or condo board member or anyone else with a question or comment on this for Caroline Spivack from Crain's. Actually, we have an interesting comment, I think, coming in from Marcia in Brooklyn already on the phones. Marcia, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Marcia: Oh, hi, Brian. Good morning. Thank you for this conversation. I just have, it might be a naive question. Why are we not asking the profiteers from the fossil fuel industry, including the offshore United Kingdom company, National Grid, and others, to, after next process, create a statewide, or New York City can be a model city attempting this, fund that would provide help to both condo/co-op boards and private homeowners? By the way, I am not an owner of anything. I'm a rent-stabilized tenant, but I sure would like whatever gives me heat to be sustainable or more sustainable. That's my question.

Brian: Marcia, thank you very much. Your landlord, even in a rent-stabilized building, if it's a big enough building, would be subject to this and might use it in front of the Rent Guidelines Board to help get a rent increase. These things trickle down to all kinds of tenants, including rent-stabilized. It's an interesting question, Caroline. Marcia and probably a lot of other people say there should be a polluter pays provision here so that that's who foots the bill for the conversion. Any plan for that?

Caroline: There isn't one now that's currently in the laws written, though amendments could be made. Basically, whoever is elected mayor would have to work with the city council to get an amendment to the law, but that's possible. I also would note that in Boston, where they have a similar building decarbonization law, they have a fund, where it's a public fund to do just this, what you're talking about, Marcia, that would basically help property owners pay for some of these upgrades. The funding can come from a variety of sources, if that's something that New York City looked into amending the law down the road.

Brian: Does the Mamdani campaign or do you at Crain's have any estimate of the cost of distributing how many heat pumps to how many buildings or other climate-friendly equipment?

Caroline: No cost estimate at the moment. We don't know exactly what type, other than heat pumps, exactly what types of technology this program could entail. We don't know also if there's eligibility requirements that would come with this, too, for different building owners. Stay tuned on that.

Brian: Let's go on to Andrew Cuomo. Your story says he privately told a co-op board president's group that he would seek to modify the law's penalties. How so, if you have specifics on that, the current versus Cuomo proposed penalty schedule?

Caroline: Basically, the idea behind this is that there's been a lot of concern about this law, particularly from co-op and condo owners. They've been very vocal. They filed a lawsuit that was unsuccessful against the law, and they've been very successful in getting attention to their cause. In their conversations with Cuomo, they stressed their concern, and Cuomo responded by saying that if he was elected mayor, one thing that he would do would be to ensure that the Department of Buildings, in its rulemaking for overseeing Local Law 97, would have more leniency for co-ops and condos.

They're not exactly sure what the exact language of that would be. Another pathway that he could choose is if elected mayor, he could again work with the city council to make changes to the law. I should also note that any sort of amendments to the law would be an uphill battle. It would just be a challenge, I'd say.

Brian: Let's talk about the penalties for a second, because I've heard people say that for many buildings, the penalties as they are in the law, even as they are in the law, would be less onerous than the conversions to electric power. They're already planning, some of them, to pay the fine as a cost of doing business, as a cost of keeping the status quo that's less economically painful. Does your reporting indicate that at all?

Caroline: Yes. In conversations I have had with some building owners, they have said that they've crunched the numbers and they believe it would be more economically viable for them, at least for a few years, to pay fines rather than immediately take out, say, more debt at a higher interest rate to pay for some of these retrofits. It's definitely something that some property owners are really thinking about. I think a lot of the discussion more recently about Local Law 97 is really how do we get folks from thinking about just complying with the law to actually making sure that they can have the technologies that are reducing carbon emissions and actually fulfill the law's intent.

Brian: Tina in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tina.

Tina: Hi, Brian. Thanks for letting me ask this question. I've been wondering about this because some rent-stabilized or rent-controlled tenants have electricity included in their rents. Even if they don't, heat is always included in the rents. If they get a heat pump, presumably that electric bill goes to them. It's within their unit. Isn't that either a reduction in services, which complicates this whole thing for landlords, or just, I don't know, how do they manage that, the electricity? Even if you have your own electric bill, if you have a heat pump now, you have a higher electric bill. [crosstalk]

Brian: That's a great question. Tenants often pay their own electricity, but not currently the heat, depending on the building, which comes from the boiler in the basement. Would this be putting burdens on individual, even rent-stabilized, tenants?

Caroline: I think that's certainly a possibility and is something that has come up a lot in my conversations when it comes to co-ops and condos, for sure. It depends on the technology that a building embraces and has a lot to do with the specific property, but raising an individual unit's heating bill is definitely a possibility.

Brian: We've talked about Mamdani's position and Cuomo's position, which are different from each other. Finally, Curtis Sliwa says he would try to repeal this law. Does he deny climate change is an issue that the city should deal with for its biggest climate pollution source, buildings? Do you know? Is he a climate denier, or does he just say, "No, we don't have to deal with this, even though it's real?" Why does he say he would try to repeal the law, if you know?

Caroline: What Curtis Sliwa has said, in his words, is protecting the environment to him matters, but he thinks that this law, the cost of it, is too onerous for property owners, and that the burden is just too high on the buildings owners that it applies to. He believes that it's just not worth it, in his view.

Brian: That, folks, is issue 22 in our election series, 30 Issues in 30 Days, New York City's current climate change law as an issue in the New York City mayoral race. That's also our health and climate section of the show for this week, as we do that every Tuesday. We thank Caroline Spivack, reporter covering transportation, climate, and energy for Crain's New York Business, for filling us in on the details. Caroline, thanks a lot.

Caroline: Thanks so much.

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