Historic Legislative Approval

New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) similarly celebrated the passage of the bill, which—if signed by the governor—will force the establishment of a 25-year fund financed by fossil fuel companies, with a third of the $3 billion in annual funding reserved for disadvantaged communities disproportionately affected by the climate emergency.

"The historic legislative approval of the Climate Change Superfund Act," NYPIRG said, "is a huge step toward ensuring that Big Oil contributes to the mounting costs of climate catastrophe. Of course, the bill cannot become law without Gov. Hochul's approval, but the act helps protect taxpayers and allows revenues to be made available to contribute toward necessary—but expensive—resiliency projects."

"The sponsors and the supportive lawmakers in both the Senate and Assembly deserve credit for making sure that Big Oil adheres to the lesson that we all learned as kids, 'you make a mess, you clean it up,'" the group added.

"It's time to make polluters pay, and it's time Gov. Hochul acted as the climate leader she promised the Pope she would be."

Food & Water Watch senior New York organizer Eric Weltman also welcomed the vote, saying that "the Climate Change Superfund Act is the legislation New Yorkers need right now. We applaud the Assembly for coming to their senses in the final hours of the legislative session and passing this critical bill. Now, Gov. Hochul, fresh off a spineless congestion pricing reversal that scandalized New Yorkers, needs to get back to work and make this landmark legislation the law of the land."

Hochul faced intense criticism this week for reversing her support for a first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan and halting its implementation in New York City, jeopardizing not only expected emissions cuts but also much-needed funding for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Weltman asserted that "it's time to make polluters pay, and it's time Gov. Hochul acted as the climate leader she promised the Pope she would be. Hochul desperately needs to look good—signing this legislation is the perfect opportunity to do something right for a change."

Other campaigners and New Yorkers also noted the governor's recent move. After highlighting some "huge victories for workers," ALIGN executive director Theodore A. Moore said that "at the eleventh hour, the Assembly also passed the Climate Superfund Act, joining the ever-growing chorus of New Yorkers saying enough is enough, and placing the burden of rising climate costs on Big Oil and corporate polluters, not just working families."

"But one 'environmental thing' a year won't meet the climate crisis at the speed it's racing past us, especially when long-fought wins like congestion pricing can be demolished in an instant," Moore stressed. "Without aggressively transitioning New York off of fossil fuels and creating the green jobs of the future, the Legislature calls it quits on our state's survival."

While supporters of the Climate Change Superfund Act are now hopeful that Hochul will sign it—and make her state the second, after Vermont, to enact such legislation—they also expressed disappointment that other bills weren't passed this session, particularly Senate-approved NY HEAT Act, which aims to limit reliance on gas.

"With Gov. Hochul dropping a major bomb on climate action by delaying congestion pricing, the Assembly failed to rise to the occasion to pass the key climate policy New Yorkers need to cut energy bills and ensure the state is on track to meet our climate goal—the NY HEAT Act," said Liz Moran, New York policy advocate for Earthjustice.

Next TCCPI Meeting

Friday, July 26, 2024

9 to 11 am

TCCPI meetings have moved online. Contact Peter Bardaglio, the TCCPI coordinator, for further details at pbardaglio@gmail.com.

An artist’s rendering of Meinig Fieldhouse. Construction is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2024, with opening planned for 2026. Photo credit: Sasaki Associates

Cornell University’s proposal to install several artificial turf fields as part of its new Meinig Fieldhouse project has ignited significant public opposition, with residents and experts voicing serious environmental and health concerns during a public hearing on Tuesday.

The $55 million project at 239 Tower Road aims to enhance the university’s sports and recreational facilities. However, the plan to use artificial turf instead of natural grass has raised alarms among Ithaca residents who argue that the synthetic material poses substantial risks to human health and the environment.

Long-Term Funding Issues

New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) was Ithaca Bikeshare’s title sponsor from April 2023 to April 2024, but NYSEG is not renewing a sponsorship contract, according to Goodmark. A spokesperson from NYSEG said the company had only agreed to a one-year sponsorship.

“We have lost that funding and that’s funding that we require,” Goodmark said. “We have other sources of income that can help fill in, but in general, it’s not sustainable for Ithaca Bikeshare at this level, and we definitely need to have more funding and more sponsorship.”

In the short term, Goodmark said the bikeshare will be able to operate with support from other sources, like the City of Ithaca and local non-profits like Ithaca Carshare, Bike Walk Tompkins, GO Ithaca, and the Park Foundation.

The Ithaca Common Council voted April 17 to give the non-profit $75,000 in federally-funded, one-time “community engagement grants” as part of the city’s Green New Deal initiatives.

Rebecca Evans, director of sustainability for the City of Ithaca, said the funds will be used to encourage people to use the service in lieu of cars or other forms of transportation.

“We’ll start more intentionally building [Ithaca] Bikeshare into the Green New Deal both in namesake but also in trying to drive individuals toward bikeshare more intentionally and seeing it as a real solution toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Evans said.

Evans said the city is committed to working with Ithaca Bikeshare, but said city leaders need to figure out how they can allocate funding for the program in the municipal budget long-term. She said that if the city’s budget cannot include the bikeshare, the city would “aggressively pursue grants from [the] state and [federal government] and potentially other non-profits” to ensure the bikeshare still remains in operation.

“Those conversations are just sort of starting with the relevant parties and I don’t know when we’ll have a decision one way or another as to how can the city continue to support bikeshare in the long term to meet their financing goals, but I suspect budget season will be very telling,” Evans said.

The city previously gave Ithaca Bikeshare $50,000 from its 2022 American Recovery Plan Act funding towards an initial purchase of electric bikes.

The bikeshare program’s leaders are also looking elsewhere for funds. Goodmark stressed the need for furthering the bikeshare’s relationship with Cornell University because its campus community is responsible for about 60% of all the bikeshare’s trips on an average day.

“So far [Cornell has] been unable or unwilling to provide any kind of guidance or funding,” Goodmark said. “I have high hopes that that will turn into a program that’s both lucrative for Ithaca Bikeshare and also super beneficial for the students on campus and staff but at this time, we don’t have anything in place.”

A spokesperson from Cornell said the university has nothing to share on this issue and declined to respond further.

Goodmark said some of Ithaca Bikeshare’s success can be connected to an initial short-lived bike share service through San Francisco-based transportation company Lime in 2018. Lime pulled its bikes and scooters out of the city during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving unmet demand for a bike provider.

“[Lime] left a lot of people who are relying on that service with no other options, so the need for it became more apparent,” Goodmark said. “Some people locally didn’t like a fancy startup company, coming in and doing something like that, [and] Ithaca Bikeshare being local and not-for-profit is a better match for our community.”

Hurricane Beryl has now become the earliest Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record as it marches across the Caribbean, wreaking havoc to the Windward Islands. Beryl’s maximum sustained winds have reached close to 160 mph, with higher gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center.

There is strong agreement amont scientists that climate breakdown has increased the occurrence of the most intense and destructive tropical storms. Warming oceans, thanks to human-caused climate change, provide more energy to fuel these storms.

The projected path of Hurricane Beryl this week. NOAA's National Weather Service.

Political Will Needed

Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, assailed the lack of political will in the U.S. and Europe to tackle the climate breakdown as Beryl hammered his nation.

“For the major emitters of greenhouse gases, those who contribute most to global warming,” he said, “you are getting a lot of talking, but you are not seeing a lot of action—as in making money available to small-island developing states and other vulnerable countries.

“I am hopeful that what is happening—and we are quite early in the hurricane season—will alert them to our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses and encourage them to honour the commitments they have made on a range of issues, from the Paris accord to the current time.”

The Supreme Court Weighs In

Right on cue, at a time when strong climate action is clearly called for, the U.S. Supreme Court last Friday sharply reined in the power of federal agencies, overturning a forty-year legal precedent known as the Chevron doctrine, which led courts to defer to the expertise of these agencies. As a result, hundreds of environmental and climate regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency, among others in the executive branch, will be open to legal challenges.

“Rules on water quality, smokestack and tailpipe emissions, biodiversity and the effects of climate change will now be relitigated and reinterpreted by the courts,” noted Richard Martin at GreenBiz.

Closer to home, as this year’s legislative session came to a close last month, Gov. Hochul made the controversial decision to pause congestion pricing in New York City after months of preparation to put it in place. In the ensuing chaos, other bills such as the NY HEAT Act and the Packaging Reduction Act failed to get a proper hearing in the General Assembly.

It was a disheartening display of the fossil fuel industry’s ability to bend state political leaders to its will, in part due to the flood of dollars it's been handing out this election year.

The one bright light in Albany was the last-minute passage of the Climate Change Superfund Act. As reported above, the bill would charge Big Oil companies a total of $3 billion a year for 25 years to pay for costs associated with the destruction caused by climate change.

The legislation now awaits the governor’s signature. If enacted, New York will join Vermont as the second U.S. state with a law requiring fossil-fuel companies to pick up at least a portion of the tab for the huge damage they've knowingly inflicted.

In the face of so much demoralizing news, climate justice and environmental groups across the state will push hard this summer to make sure the governor signs this historic bill. If she does, it will mark a significant step towards holding climate polluters accountable. But don’t count on it; only intense, sustained grassroots pressure can make it happen. So, for the sake of future generations, don’t sit on the sidelines. It’s time to turn up the heat.

Peter Bardaglio

TCCPI Coordinator