CONTRIBUTOR
New York City is moving forward with several climate policies which are likely to make everyday life even more costly for the middle class in one of the country’s most expensive cities.
The city is aiming to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% come 2050, push a sweeping building electrification mandate known as Local Law 97 and impose an automobile traffic congestion fee, each of which will increase the costs of living or working in the nation’s largest city, especially for the middle class, energy and New York policy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan each already rank within the 15 most expensive places to live in the U.S., according to an analysis conducted by CNBC.
“The city is wealthy because, somewhere out there, people are producing energy, food, clothing and so on, and people are trading all of that in New York,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow for the Institute for Energy Research, told the DCNF. The city’s emissions target “will make things more expensive and drive people away to places like Florida,” he added. (RELATED: This Populous Blue State Has A Green Energy Mandate. Experts Say It Threatens Grid Reliability)
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That flight of capital would shrink the tax base, thereby straining the city’s finances further, Kish told the DCNF. “People without the means, working people, do not have the opportunity to just pack up and leave,” Kish told the DCNF. “But it’s easy if you’re Mike Bloomberg.”
Local Law 97, meanwhile, is poised to impose emissions standards that approximately 50,000 buildings in New York City will have to meet starting in 2024, with additional restrictions imposed starting in 2030, according to The New York Times.
Some buildings are easier to retrofit with the appropriate wiring and equipment necessary to comply than others, and a large share of the high costs incurred by landlords and building owners for coming into compliance will almost certainly be passed on to residents, Jane Menton, a mother who lives in a Queens co-op and has led a grassroots effort to fight against Local Law 97, told the DCNF.
“Progressives in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn are so afraid to go against the narrative that this rule is a climate solution… but it’s unaffordable to convert buildings to electric so they won’t convert to comply with the rule, they will just pay fines which will then allow the city to use the money to plug gaps in the budget,” Menton told the DCNF. “The same politicians and advocates who claim to care about the city’s working class wrote a law that will push them out of their homes… functionally, this law is just a carbon tax on the middle class.”
Notably, other cities, such as Boston, have pushed for similar building electrification policies to fight climate change, and the Biden administration has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help state and municipal governments pursue policies that “decarbonize” buildings as well.
The New York City congestion pricing tax is promulgated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which is technically not an agency operating under the auspices of the municipal government.
Congestion pricing is meant to reduce emissions and air pollution by charging drivers fees to enter certain sections of the city. Specifically, the MTA has proposed to charge passenger cars $15 and trucks as much as $36 to be able to enter a large swath of Manhattan, according to local outlet NBC 4.
However, the proposal may not significantly reduce the amount of traffic that piles up on the city’s roadways, potentially even increasing the amount of congestion in areas like the Bronx, according to the New York Post. Qualifying low-income drivers who register with the appropriate authorities could also receive a 50% discount on the charges after their first ten trips into the relevant area of Manhattan, according to local digital news outlet northjersey.com
“Congestion pricing should be viewed primarily as a revenue action to cover the MTA’s indefensibly high capital costs,” Ken Girardin, director of research for the Empire Center, a New York-focused think tank, told the DCNF. “As to congestion itself, policymakers have declined to do basic things like enforce parking rules or dial back the parking permits given to public employees or other policy changes that would take cars off lower Manhattan roads because those aren’t things you can borrow money against.”
The policy would also make life more expensive for people who do not live in the city but make the commute each day to go to work, according to Politico. Notably, politicians in London, the U.K’s largest metropolis, have attempted a similar scheme, which Republican New York City Councilman Joseph Borelli of Staten Island described as “a complete disaster” and an “abject failure” when discussing New York’s forthcoming version of the scheme in January.
“If all of New York state went ‘net-zero’ today, United Nations climate modeling indicates that a mere 0.0023° F of global warming would be avoided by 2050. That is far from measurable, much less significant. So nothing would be accomplished,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, told the DCNF. Businesses will stay in NYC and play along with the climate agenda, including high taxes, as long as costs can be passed on to locals. When profitability stops, businesses will leave… The costs of the climate agenda are regressive. Poorer people will feel them first.”
The offices of Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the MTA did not respond immediately to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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Sure glad I don’t live anywhere near the cesspool known as New York City. only near the cesspool known as San Francisco
Interesting to read Steve Milloy’s point about the infinitesimally small difference the New York changes would mean to global temperatures. Here in the U.K., both major political parties are committed to banning domestic gas boilers by 2035.
Now some 80% of British homes rely on these boilers to provide hot water for showers in the morning and central heating – a huge proportion of the nation’s housing stock. So forcibly ripping the boilers out and replacing them with heat pumps will be a major change in the way of life for most people. And even the politicians planning the legislation agree that the boilers are a highly-efficient and cost-effective way of heating homes – they are just philosophically opposed to them.
But here’s the thing. Making the change will remove just 0.000002% of the earth’s CO2. So effecting this major change in how people live is literally pointless. Unfortunately, there is a failure of journalism in the U.K. at the moment and nobody in the media has bothered to do the maths and call out the policy. By the way, the replacement of a perfectly serviceable gas boiler with an iffy heat pump is unaffordable for most folk so the current government is offering grants to persuade homeowners to make the switch. But it is the utter pointlessness of doing it that is the real story. You can’t even measure six places to the right of the decimal point.
“Here in the U.K., both major political parties are committed to banning domestic gas boilers by 2035”. One expects this of today’s authoritarian Labour party. The Conservatives used to stand up for common sense before Carrie took control. After that, sanity lasted just a few days. Rishi Sunak richly deserves to be thrown out but the British people do not deserve the destruction that Keir Starmer will unleash on them. What a tragedy that the mechanisms of democracy have been commandeered by politicians determined to give the public no choice.
John,
they are not highly efficient or an effective, cost or practically, way to heat the majority of U.K.housing. They can work in very well insulated buildings but equally so will gas and oil and cheaper to run.
The narrative that heat pumps are highly efficient is false. Gas and oil boilers have to be 90% efficient by law now and it’s difficult to get much better, with the limit being less than 100% (Basic science)
I whole heartedly agree with most of your post but please don’t continue with the misleading information about heat pumps.
Ian – please read again. My comments about being highly efficient relate to gas boilers. You owe me an apology.
Yep, John was obviously saying that it is the older gas boilers that are efficient.
And that heat pumps are basically a waste of time, and particularly money, in the standard older UK building not specifically designed for them… which very few are.
My brother uses a heat pump in Tasmania, but his recently built house was specifically designed to use one. Triple glazing, deep roof insulation, and basically zero heat leakage.
And this policy which may entually remove 0.000002% of CO2 and will undoubtedly cause a massive empoverishment and an endangering of the population, will be annihilated by nature (soils – atmopsheric CO2 equilibrium, Henry’s law atmosphere – oceans CO2 equilibrium, volcanoes emissions, etc.) in a finger snap.
while UK folks were recently informed that an average heat pump now costs £45,000
And this U.K. citizen says they can all bog off
The politicians obviously can’t count. There are over 22m homes in the UK on the gas network. Even if they could reach their target of installing 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028
(which they won’t – under 20,000 have been installed this year) they will only have replaced 4.8m gas boilers by 2035. Plus plenty of people who have already ‘taken the plunge’ regret having done so.
As you say an awful lot of pointless expensive activity to achieve colder homes and miniscule reduction of emissions.
Here’s something I wasn’t aware of (and is particularly important for New York with its skyscrapers) but heat pumps can’t pump upwards very efficiently. In a high-rise building, every 15th or 20th floor would have to be completely and entirely given over to more heat pumps getting the heat up the building. Given the inefficiencies in the system, it wouldn’t take long before the top floors were practically unheatable, no matter how much energy you put into it.
This is not about the climate. It’s about the rulers of the world making more poor people to lord over.
The anarchist playbook is on full display with these latest rainbow chasing edicts in NY. Just like London England, New York is following down the well trodden socialists track, i.e. spending other peoples money. The end result is best described as, Detroitification.
That is what happens when a wealthy municipality is taken over by complete morons or socialists to use their more modern name.
The resulting wealth flight will take NY down, just as it will take London England down. The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, is head of the World organisation of city Mayors, that group includes NY so the lunacy of anti cars, anti freedom of rights, etc. is taking place across the globe.
When the weeds have taking over the roads, then the morons, sorry, I mean socialists, (sorry easy mistake), will simply move on to the next wealth centre to predate and destroy.
The first casually of socialism is democratic choice. Welcome to the globalists utopia, Bloomberg is a prime advocate.
They wouldn’t leave when there’s sacrifices to be made and a planet to saved would they?
Grave concerns as California faces high-income earner exodus (msn.com)
“The city’s emissions target “will make things more expensive and drive people away to places like Florida,” he added.”
…where they will then resume voting for the same party and political ideology that made them leave their home state in the first place. This is our problem. As Dan Bongino often says, “things just haven’t gotten bad enough yet” for people to change their voting habits. By the time they do it will be too late. It already is. The USS America has already hit that iceberg, is taking on water, and is now listing badly. But the band plays on…
Allow me to augment your Titanic metaphor – the Left’s march through the institutions is very much like the flooding of successive compartments via the unprotected E-deck.
Raid in Manhattan.
Big (rotting) Apple.
On the plus side, imposing Net Zero on the UN headquarters could be fun. No gas or oil heating in winter, no airco on hot summer days without wind. Looking forward to that..
That would be the most appropriate action, Ed. Let those who advocate policy be the first to experience the full impact of their ‘bright’ ideas.
Yeah let’s throw in only electricity produced by wind or solar (read: frequent blackouts) and no meat consumption allowed for any UN employees or visitors.
The only gas used in the UN building is for gas cooking in the kitchens, but they do use a huge amount of heating and air conditioning using a big chiller plant and building management system installed in 2015. Amazing what you can find out on the internet, isn’t it.
Oh and the heating appears to be provided from a Con Edison Steam system that is probably heated (off site) by gas or oil.
You should know that all government buildings will be protected by “emergency” diesel generators, large enough to be effective.
Apparently the New York (Pennsylvania, Vermont, White House) employ stupid people. They must be really smart in some subject ( like medieval dental flossing?) but are really stupid (intentionally ignorant?) in essential things–like electric service and energy.
Electrification is one of the most dangerous policy decisions foisted upon us by literally stupid people. Every application for existing buildings and transport is an unadulterated waste of time and money. Even a person ignorant of BTU’s, or the difference of power and energy, or economic priorities will realize quickly that you cannot heat a barn with an electric heater from Walmart.
Electrification has been essential to our economic growth for over a hundred years by providing electricity everywhere, on demand anytime, dependable electric service..at the lowest cost.
Stupid gives us this weird extention of the manufactured, unscientific “climate crisis” with it’s equally weird and magical “green energy.”
Stupid is believing that the world will be saved by intermittent, wildly expensive (with energy customer paid for makeup capacity, energy and subsidies), unavailable on demand, wholly unreliable, elsewhere polluting (China, the real stuff) “green energy.”
Stupidly fantasized and unnecessarily mandated for every uninsulated building, all transports (cars, trucks, planes, ships) along with cows, stoves, faucets, toilets,etc.
Stupid is destroying our domestic manufacturing, the entire economy and our quality of life with “green” dreams.
Our people are suffering and enemies salivate at our stupidity.
Stupid people vote for evil politicians espousing bad policies.
“Stupid is as stupid done”…or something like that.
Like the first round of electric vehicles (at the turn of the 20th century), electrification is something that has, by and large (in the developed world) already happened. Major initial uses were lighting and powering stationary electric motors (pumps, fans, lifts, household appliances, etc.) Electricity as used for heating and cooking only came about because of the lack of infrastructure (i.e., city gas) in outlaying and rural areas. Also for cooking, an electric stove was preferable to a coal or kerosene stove in many ways.
But in this day and age, there are more alternatives for those not connected to city utilities, like fuel oil and bottled gas. For those who are connected to gas lines, that is by far the cheapest, most efficient form of heat (and also for cooking) available.
This whole electrification push is not coming about because consumers chose an Edison light bulb over a gas light, or a gas furnace over a coal furnace. Consumers generally choose that which works best for them with regards to availability, price, convenience, and how well things work. This time around it is consumers being forced to go backwards – imagine having to go back to a coal or wood stove to cook on instead of a gas or electric stove. But at least the aforementioned got the job done. They just took much longer to heat up and were dirty. Electrifying buildings that are serviced just fine by gas will result in systems that don’t work as well and could well crash the grid.
That’s one thing I remember as a kid when staying at my grandparents’ house. Whenever the power went out (like during a storm) you could always light the stove and cook on it. You could heat water to bathe if need be. That was seen as a plus over electric stoves.
Not being able to edit my post, I would add that of course the first round of EVs went over like lead balloons once gas powered cars showed their superiority.
Really, if this is the thinking of New Yorkers, should the rest of us expend any effort to set them straight? Let them chose economic oblivion if that’s what they want. They can keep the UN while every institution of value and all business that are productive contributors can move to states that demonstrate a reverence for logic, critical thinking and the truth. Perhaps the EPA and many similar government agencies that feel the need to save the world through regulation could move into the empty, unlit, unheated buildings once the mass exodus of sane people is over. The Statue of Liberty can be repainted in rainbow colours and self identify as a monument to socialism and gender fluidity. Eventually there may be a need to build a border wall around the remains of what was once a thriving urban center just to keep the contagion from spreading.
Will anyplace escape for long?
“ New York City’s Climate Policies Could Make Life Even More ‘Unaffordable’ For the Middle Class”
That’s the goal. The end.
Transfer of the wealth of the middle class to the wealthy and politically powerful is the goal, to be more precise.