The Tropical Deforestation-Free Procurement Act would be the first in the U.S. to regulate local companies’ supply chains and require they’re free of products sourced through deforestation. But Gov. Hochul, who has until the end of the year to sign it into law, is touting a revised version that supporters say would render it ineffective.
Environmental groups see the expansion project as a step backward in honoring the state’s landmark 2019 climate law, which seeks to move away from fossil fuels and guarantee that 70 percent of New York’s electricity comes from renewable energy sources by 2030.
Local Law 97 is one of the most ambitious—and divisive—climate measures enacted in any U.S. city. While some co-op boards see the mandate as an opportunity to make sustainable upgrades to their buildings, others say it will drain their financial reserves.
The legislation introduced in the City Council last week is geared at keeping tenants in flood-prone basement apartments out of harm’s way.
Recycling rates around longtime existing requirements—which ask residents to separate paper, plastics, metal and glass from the rest of their trash—have failed to improve over the last decade. Getting New Yorkers to comply with yet another set of rules could be an uphill battle, experts say.
“While the federal government—and a growing number of states—are taking action to confront the dual challenges of climate change and workforce development, New York has fallen short.”
“I haven’t slept at all, I panic every time it pours hard rain,” one basement tenant in Brooklyn told City Limits after water began to breach her apartment early Friday morning.
“About 70 percent of New York City’s climate-heating pollution comes from energy use in buildings, with the majority of that pollution coming from large buildings covered by Local Law 97.”
“Waste has always been inflicted upon the margins,” said Oliver Franklin-Wallis, author of the new book “Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future.” Waste, he writes, is often exported from rich countries to poor ones, a phenomenon known as “toxic colonialism.”
“After Hurricane Sandy, my school closed for a week, while whole school student bodies had to be relocated across the city. More recently, my school’s basement and entire first floor flooded the week before school started due to heavy rains.”
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