December, 03 2018, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Pete Sikora, New York Communities for Change, (917) 648-7786 pete.sikora@gmail.com, Brett Thomason, ALIGN-NY, (617) 938-9989 brett@alignny.org
NYers, Elected Officials Rally for #GreenNewDeal4NYC Before Council Hearing on Landmark Legislation to Slash NYC Climate Pollution
More Than 150 New Yorkers Join and Testify at the Council’s Hearing for Energy Efficiency Legislation, de Blasio Administration Also Supports
WASHINGTON
Over 150 concerned New Yorkers, unions and Councilmembers rallied in front of a large sign spelling out #GreenNewDeal4NYC before a City Hall hearing on historic, globally-unprecedented city council legislation. The proposed legislation would fight climate change and create good jobs by requiring all large buildings in the city, the top source of the city's climate pollution, to slash their pollution by over 80% by upgrading to high energy efficiency standards.
The proposal would be the first comprehensive standards anywhere in the world to slash climate pollution from existing buildings, which are the top source of climate pollution in many cities, worldwide. In NYC, building emissions are responsible for about 70% of all city emissions. The prime sponsors of the legislation are Council Environmental Committee Chair Costa Constantinides and Council Speaker Corey Johnson, both who joined and spoke at the rally. At the hearing, the de Blasio Administration also testified in strong support of the bill.
"If we are going to save New York City, we have to start with the dirtiest buildings," said Council Member Costa Constantinides, Chair of the Committee on Environmental Protection. "Passing this bill doesn't just mandate a 40% carbon emission reduction by 2030. It protects families from losing their home, makes our air cleaner, and holds bad emitters like Trump Tower accountable. I am grateful for the support this legislation has already seen, because so many recognize the time to act is now."
"Now is the time to fight climate change. Just days ago, President Trump discredited his own administration's report warning that human activity is contributing to the planet getting warmer. He said, 'I don't believe it.' Well, I do. Clearly, it is up to cities to lead the way to protect our environment. Buildings are responsible for two-thirds of the city's greenhouse gas emissions. Mandating energy efficiency for large buildings is a critical next step to combating climate change and I am proud this Council is taking action. I thank Council Member Constantinides for his leadership on this issue," said Council Speaker Corey Johnson.
Immediately after the rally, the Council's Environmental Protection Committee held an overflowing hearing on the bill (Intro 1253). A wide range of climate, environmental justice, community groups, labor unions, institutions and activists testified in support of the bill, backed by a large crowd wearing stickers labelled "#GreenNewDeal4NYC."
Intro 1253 would achieve the pollution reductions that the world's scientists, convened by the UN, have determined is needed to stave off the worst of the climate crisis. In particular, the bill cuts climate pollution from covered buildings by over 40% by 2030 and over 80% by 2050 (in combination with a greening electric grid). The bill requires the city's least-efficient, most-polluting large buildings to begin cutting their pollution in 2022.
"Unless the world radically slashes climate pollution, New York City will cook while slowly slipping under water, and we will be hit by far more extreme weather such as hurricanes, heat waves, intense rain and flooding. But there's also opportunity in solving this crisis," said Rachel Rivera, a Sandy survivor and board member of New York Communities for Change (NYCC). "It's time for a Green New Deal for New York of good, union jobs to clean up this city's dirty, polluting buildings. Councilmember Constantinides and Speaker Johnson's bold, transformative legislation gets it done and is a model for the world. It's time for the Council to pass it and the Mayor to sign it."
Intro 1253 legislation creates good, union jobs that hire from communities of color. These jobs would be career-track, sustainable jobs that would last for decades as about 50,000 large buildings throughout the city transformed to high energy efficiency over time. Buildings would need to end energy waste in order to meet high energy efficiency standards. Overall, the bill would create thousands of jobs in design, renovation and construction for upgrading building energy efficiency.
QUOTE SHEET:
"After years of hard work the Council has a bill which balances the concerns of reducing emissions locally, fighting climate change, and protecting housing affordability. In the wake of storms and extreme weather as well as increasingly dire predictions about the impact of climate change on our communities right now is the time to act," said Stephan Edel, Project Director at New York Working Families.
"In another year of devastating storms, fires, flooding and droughts as well as an IPCC report warning of the dire, and looming impacts of global climate change, we cannot afford any further inaction. By dramatically cutting pollution from the City's largest source, intro 1253 will create jobs, save lives, clean the air and protect low-income tenants. These are the bottom-line principles around which our Climate Works for All coalition has been organizing for several years. We applaud Council Member Constantinines and Speaker Johnson for pushing this first-of-its-kind legislation" said Brett Thomason, Climate Organizer for ALIGN-NY.
"To protect our communities from grave climate catastrophes, we must act boldly and quickly," said Petra Luna, tenant leader at Make the Road New York. "We applaud Councilmember Constantinides and Speaker Johnson for hearing our call and putting forward a bill that aims to tackle our largest source of climate pollution: NYC's large buildings"
"Intro 1253 is climate legislation that actually addresses the needs and priorities of the low-income communities and communities of color who are disproportionately burdened by the impacts of climate change. It cuts emissions at the rate recommended by UN climate scientists while protecting affordable housing residents from unfair, permanent rent hikes. The bill will also help New Yorkers of color participate in and directly benefit from the emergent clean energy economy by creating thousands of good jobs each year, which will help strengthen our communities for generations to come. This is exactly what New York City needs: bold climate policy grounded in principles of justice," said Aditi Varshneya, Community Organizer at WE ACT for Environmental Justice
"The NYC Dirty Buildings bill is truly an example of a Green New Deal in action. It gets to the center of real solutions to the climate crisis: creating thousands of good jobs for New Yorkers most impacted by storms like Sandy, while tackling the City's biggest source of emissions. While the Trump administration props up fossil fuel interests, frontline communities are leading the charge for a Fossil Free New York and making sure those most responsible for climate change pay their fair share," said Betamia Coronel, native New Yorker and 350.org National Organizer.
"After all the bad news predicting catastrophic climate disasters that will certainly intensify unless we completely get off fossil fuels within the next 12 years, the 'Dirty Buildings Bill' is a global first step for diminishing carbon emissions from big city big buildings. Since 70% of the carbon emissions in NYC come from big buildings, this retrofitting bill will reduce carbon emissions significantly limiting the climate changing effects of their heating and cooling systems while saving energy costs, making apartments and offices more comfortable and making the air in NYC healthier to breathe. This bill will create good paying, skilled jobs and protect low income and rent controlled/regulated apartment dwellers. We are looking forward to more cities following suit and for the City and State to enact more climate solutions to address the urgent crisis of climate change," said Nancy Romer, a member of the leadership team of the Peoples Climate Movement-NY.
"The IPCC report tells us we have 12 years to meet the greatest existential threat to our city and world. We're here today supporting a #GreenNewDeal4NYC because this bill meets the scale of our greatest collective challenge by tackling the dirtiest buildings in New York City that produce over half of our climate pollution. The time is now for a transition to a fossil free future, and New York City can lead the way," said Sarah Lyons, a member of the Organizing Committee, NYC-DSA Ecosocialist Working Group.
"As nations around the world meet in Poland to discuss climate action, the New York City Council is actually moving that forward," said Carl Arnold, chair of the New York City Group of the Sierra Club. "Swedish fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg just told world leaders that since they're acting like children by doing nothing that will essentially solve the climate crisis, people at the grassroots must take responsibility for saving human civilization. This legislation represents the fruits of dedicated effort by exactly these grassroots here in America's largest city. We urge the City Council to pass it," said Carl Arnold, Chair of the New York City Group of The Sierra Club.
Groups and unions at the rally included: ALIGN NY, Beacon High School Environmental Club, CWA Local 1180, Democratic Socialists of America, Environmental Defense Fund, Food & Water Watch, IBEW Local 3, Jewish Climate Action Network, Make the Road New York, New York City Coalition for Employment and Training, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, New York Communities for Change, New York Tenants & Neighbors, People's Climate Movement - New York, PSC-CUNY, Sane Energy Project, Sierra Club NYC Group, Sunrise Movement, TenantsPAC, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Working Families, UPROSE, 350.org, 350Brooklyn and 350NYC.
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
'This Maniac Must Be Stopped': Netanyahu Condemned Over Massive Beirut Bombing
While Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly survived the attack on the densely populated area of Lebanon's capitol, one observer warned that Israel may still "get the regional war it has sought."
Sep 27, 2024
Israel's dropping of massive bombs in Beirut on Friday sparked a fresh wave of global condemnation against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with critics accusing him of trying to drag the Middle East into an even bloodier conflict that could engulf the entire region.
The Israeli attack supposedly targeted Hassan Nasrallah, head of the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah. Multiple media outlets reported that the leader survived, though hundreds of others are feared dead in the "complete carnage" from the bombing that leveled several buildings. While the death toll from Friday is not yet clear, over 700 people have been killed in Israel's strikes in Lebanon since Monday.
As The New York Timesreported:
Lebanon's health minister, Firass Abiad, said that there had been a "complete decimation" of four to six residential buildings as a result of the Israeli strikes. He said that the number of casualties in hospitals was low so far because people were still trapped under the rubble. "They are residential buildings. They were filled with people," Mr. Abiad said. "Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble."
Social media and news sites quickly filled with photos and videos of massive plumes of smoke and smoldering rubble.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, said Friday that she was "deeply alarmed and profoundly worried about the potential civilian impact of tonight's massive strikes on Beirut's densely populated southern suburbs. The city is still shaking with fear and panic widespread. All must urgently cease fire."
However, the bombing is widely expected to worsen this week's escalation, which came after nearly a year of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) trading strikes with Hezbollah over the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 41,000 Palestinians.
"For Israel, it may not matter if Nasrallah was killed. Either way, it believes it'll get the regional war it has sought," Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said of the Friday attack.
Citing an unnamed Israeli official, NBC Newsreported that "Israel expects Hezbollah will attempt to mount a major retaliatory attack" in response to Friday's bombing of the group's command center.
As Reutersdetailed:
Israel has struck the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, four times over the last week, killing at least three senior Hezbollah military commanders.
But Friday's attack was far more powerful, with multiple blasts shaking windows across the city, recalling Israeli airstrikes during the war it fought with Hezbollah in 2006.
In a video posted on social media, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari described the Friday attack as "a precise strike" on what "served as the epicenter of Hezbollah's terror," adding that the group's headquarters "was intentionally built under residential buildings."
During Netanyahu's United Nations General Assembly speech on Friday—which was met with a walkout from several diplomats and other officials—the prime minister said that Hezbollah has stored rockets "in schools, in hospitals, in apartment buildings, and in the private homes of the citizens of Lebanon. They endanger their own people. They put a missile in every kitchen, a rocket in every garage."
In response, Middle East expert Assal Rad said, "So he's claiming there's no civilian spaces in Lebanon and Israel has a right to destroy all of it."
Jason Hickel, who has positions at multiple European universities, also sounded the alarm over those lines from the Israeli leader's speech.
Netanyahu is "effectively arguing all homes are a military target," he said. "This is 100% genocidal and this maniac must be stopped."
Hours before the attack in suburban Beirut, the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) strongly condemned "Israel's brutal bombardment of Lebanon, another reckless escalation in the Middle East on behalf of the Benjamin Netanyahu regime that risks further destabilization in an already fragile region."
"The Israeli bombardment of Lebanon is the latest dark chapter in a series of disproportionate displays of force. Its ongoing genocide in Palestine over the last year has proven beyond any doubt that its willingness to commit horrific acts knows no bounds," DiEM25 said. "Rather than seeking a peaceful and just resolution, Israel's government has consistently chosen the path of militarism, often with international support from the European Union and the United States."
"The international community, including the E.U., has a critical role to play in promoting peace rather than enabling violence," the group added. "Peace and security in the Middle East will not come through bombs and military strength. It will come through diplomacy. We remain committed to working towards that aim and stand in solidarity with the Lebanese people, as well as all others suffering from this violent escalation."
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'This Is Political,' Journalist Who Published Vance Dossier Says of Permanent X Ban
"It's not about a violation of X's policies," wrote Ken Klippenstein. "What else would you call this but politically motivated?"
Sep 27, 2024
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein said Friday that he was privately informed by the Elon Musk-owned social media platform X that his account has been permanently banned, a decision that Klippenstein argued was "politically motivated."
X, formerly Twitter, suspended Klippenstein on Thursday after he posted to the platform a link to his Substack article containing a download link for a 271-page dossier that Republican nominee Donald Trump's campaign prepared to vet Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who was ultimately chosen as the former president's running mate.
The dossier, Klippenstein noted, "reportedly comes from an alleged Iranian government hack of the Trump campaign," and major news outlets such as Politicodeclined opportunities to publish it. The U.S. Justice Department on Friday charged three men with allegedly carrying out a hack against the Trump campaign.
In a statement issued late Thursday afternoon as it faced backlash, X said that "Ken Klippenstein was temporarily suspended for violating our rules on posting unredacted private personal information, specifically Sen. Vance's physical addresses and the majority of his Social Security number."
On Friday, Klippenstein—who has previously worked for The Intercept and The Nation—shared a private message from X informing him that his account is "permanently in read-only mode, which means you can't post, Repost, or Like content" or "create new accounts."
"The two-step dance X is doing here—avoiding further backlash by pretending like my suspension is just a temporary thing, no big deal, while privately suspending me permanently—only makes sense when you consider the political dimensions," Klippenstein wrote on his Substack. "Elon Musk is an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump and JD Vance's political campaign. The Wall Street Journalreported that he promised $45 million a month for a pro-Trump Super PAC (Musk subsequently disputed this). So X clearly doesn't want to give the appearance that my ban was politically motivated. But a careful look at the pretext X cites for my suspension makes it obvious that this is political."
"The media is going to see the case of the Vance dossier and conclude that reporting on similar documents isn't worth losing their social media accounts over."
Observers have noted the obvious parallels between the social media platform's handling of the Vance dossier and a 2020 New York Post story on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop. At the time, Twitter—not yet under Musk's ownership—placed restrictions on sharing of the Post story, limits that were reversed months later.
Klippenstein noted Friday that Musk—a self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist"—was "so incensed by Twitter's previous owners' decision to block the story on its platform that he took the extraordinary step of releasing Twitter's internal correspondence to independent journalist Matt Taibbi so he could report on how the decision came about. (I support his transparency, by the way.)"
"Now, anyone posting a link to my article finds their account locked, which is exactly how Twitter handled the Hunter Biden laptop story by the New York Post," Klippenstein wrote.
Journalist Lee Fang pointed out shortly after Klippenstein's ban that "the Hunter Biden laptop—which had newsworthy info that was fair game—also had personal dox info, far more than this Vance doc."
"The Biden laptop had bank/credit cards, personal addresses, nudity, etc," Fang added. "You can still link to those Biden docs on X, but Vance doc link banned?"
Klippenstein argued that "the biggest tell that this is political" is that X did not offer him a chance to restore his account by removing the post that resulted in his ban, as the platform typically does with users accused of violating its policies.
"As an experiment, last night my editor and I decided to redact all 'private' information from the Vance dossier in my story here at Substack," Klippenstein wrote Friday. "Despite filing an appeal in which I mention this, I remain banned. So it's not about a violation of X's policies. What else would you call this but politically motivated?"
"Boo hoo, poor me, I lost my account. That's not the point here," he continued. "If you were frustrated with the media's refusal to publish the Vance dossier, prepare for a future that's worse. The media is going to see the case of the Vance dossier and conclude that reporting on similar documents isn't worth losing their social media accounts over. Why take the risk when you can just blather on about the horse race? As always, it's the public that loses out the most."
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Dems Name and Shame Companies Paying Executives More Than They Pay in Federal Taxes
"In the first five years following the 2017 giveaway, 35 companies raked in $277 billion in domestic profits and paid their executives $9.5 billion."
Sep 27, 2024
A group of congressional Democrats and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday highlighted dozens of profitable U.S. corporations that have paid their executives more than they've paid in federal income taxes in recent years, a problem that the lawmakers attributed in large part to former President Donald Trump's massive tax-cut package that Republicans are working to extend.
"In the first five years following the 2017 giveaway, 35 companies raked in $277 billion in domestic profits and paid their executives $9.5 billion—more than they paid in federal income taxes," the lawmakers noted in letters to each of the companies, pointing to recent research by the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness.
"Next year, Congress will decide what to do with these corporate giveaways. Republicans have promised to go even further if elected and cut the corporate income tax rate from 21% to 15%," the lawmakers continued. "This additional tax giveaway would provide Fortune 100 corporations as a whole with another $50 billion each year, more than all current K-12 federal education spending."
"The windfall from TCJA to big businesses, executives, and wealthy shareholders is unmistakable."
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in the Senate and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) in the House led the letters to the 35 companies, a list that includes high-profile names such as Netflix, Ford, and Tesla, whose CEO is the richest man in the world.
"Tesla is among the most dramatic examples of this phenomenon—big, profitable corporations that have actually been paying their top executives more than they pay the government in federal income taxes," the lawmakers wrote. "According to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness, in the period between 2018 and 2022, Tesla raked in $4.4 billion in profits and did not pay a single dollar in federal income tax."
During that same period, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk received "the largest pay package ever recorded for a company's CEO," the lawmakers observed.
The other companies that have paid their top executives more than they've paid in federal taxes in recent years are T-Mobile, AIG, NextEra, Darden, MetLife, Duke Energy, First Energy, DISH, Principal Financial, American Electrical Power, Kinder Morgan, Dominion, Oneok, Williams, Xcel Energy, NRG Energy, Salesforce, DTE Energy, Ameren, Sempra Energy, U.S. Steel, Entergy, AmerisourceBergen, PPL, CMS Energy, Evergy, Voya Financial, Atmos Energy, Alliant Energy, Match Group, UGI, and Agilent Tech.
The lawmakers demanded that the companies' CEOs answer several questions, including how much the corporations would have paid in federal taxes had the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) not been enacted and how much they've spent on lobbying to keep the Republican law intact.
"The windfall from TCJA to big businesses, executives, and wealthy shareholders is unmistakable," the letters read. "A recent analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that 342 companies paid an average effective income tax rate of just 14.1% during the five years after TCJA passed, almost a third less than the 21% statutory rate. The gains do not 'trickle down'—90% of workers saw no earnings increase, while executives making $989,000 per year or more got an average raise of $50,000."
The letters were released days after the Economic Policy Institutereleased an analysis showing that CEO pay has soared by 1,085% since 1978 while the pay of typical U.S. workers has grown by just 24%.
The 2017 Trump-GOP tax law led major companies to splurge on stock buybacks, a major gift to corporate executives whose annual compensation packages consist largely of stock.
"President [Joe] Biden and Democrats in Congress are committed to making corporations pay their fair share," the lawmakers wrote in their letters. "In the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, we passed the first corporate tax increase in 30 years with the 15% corporate minimum tax. Though significant, raising $222 billion from billion-dollar corporations, it is not enough on its own to undo the corporate tax giveaways signed into law by President Trump and ensure that corporations pay their fair share."
"Next year," they added, "Congress has an opportunity to take bigger strides in reforming our tax code—to raise the corporate rate, close loopholes, and hold big businesses to the same standards as everyday working Americans who pay their fair share."
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