NYC NOW - December 19, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Some parents are calling for more transparency around school safety, after a spate of stabbings at New York City schools. Plus, the MTA is accusing New Jersey officials of revisionist history over its lawsuit against congestion pricing. And finally, WNYC’s Brian Lehrer talks with City Limits climate reporter, Mariana Samois about a lawsuit filed by fossil fuel proponents to keep New Yorkers using gas.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. Some parents are calling for more transparency around school safety after a spate of stabbings at New York City schools this month. The state has a database on homicides, assaults, and weapons possession by school, but the data is two years old. Mona Davids is founder of the School Safety Coalition, and she says this is unacceptable. Parents should know what the safety status is when it comes to each and every school. The data is also dramatically different from internal NYPD data obtained by WMYC on weapons recovered at city schools. Advocates say education officials should be more transparent about school safety.

Now to New Jersey, where the MTA is accusing state officials of revisionist history over its lawsuit against congestion pricing. As WMYC's Stephen Nesson reports, new court documents revealed the MTA's strongest arguments yet against the Garden State's claims. New Jersey is suing the federal government over the MTA's plan, saying it had no say in the process and claiming that the federal government rubber-stamped congestion pricing. But the MTA says officials from New Jersey were invited to several meetings in public hearings over a four-year period, and that the state didn't really give much feedback during that time. Documents show the MTA conducted four years of outreach analysis and discussion before concluding that congestion pricing will reduce pollution and traffic in New York City and New Jersey. Stay close. There's more after the break. The fossil fuel industry is suing to keep New Yorkers using gas. Earlier this year, New York became the first state to pass a law that will phase out gas hookups in new constructions.

essentially banning gas stoves in future buildings. The state's goal is to reduce 85% of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. State leaders also hope to have 70% of New Yorkers' power come from renewable sources by 2030. But after industry groups overturned a similar effort in Berkeley, California, fossil fuel proponents are trying to use the same legal strategy here. For more, WMYC's Brian Laird talked with City Limits Climate Reporter, Marianna Samois. So who are the plaintiffs trying to stop this policy from going into effect in New York State? And what's their basic argument? So the lawsuit was filed on October 12 at the court of the

Northern District of New York, and it was by 13 plaintiffs. These plaintiffs include a series of small businesses and unions, as well as the National Gas and Propane Association, which has been very active in putting forth anti-electrification campaigns across the country. So at least that's kind of transparent about who they are. This is the industry itself taking the state to court. And you report that the same law firm filing this suit successfully blocked a similar policy regarding future gas stove construction in Berkeley, California. What was their winning legal strategy? Well, in Berkeley, California, They put forth, you know, this argument that the prohibition of gas in new construction

violates a federal law known as the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Epka for short. So what Epka really does is it gives the U.S. government authority to set energy efficiency standards for appliances. But in reality, speaking to a lot of lawyers across the country, what they tell me is that this Epka was actually just a standardization law that was supposed to just set a national standard to make it easy for manufacturers so that they wouldn't have to do, you know, 50 different kinds of standards for every single state. So it was just more of like a practicality standardization law.

And it got completely misconstrued. instead for a different purpose, which was to topple the gas ban in California, in Berkeley, California. And so is there any reason to think that if that lawsuit succeeded on those grounds in Berkeley, that it won't succeed in New York? Well, I think that the point isn't so much if it will succeed or not. There is a chance, of course, that it could succeed. In the California case, you had three judges on there. that were appointed by Republican presidents.

And so some people that I've spoken with say that there was a bit of like a conservative leaning in that decision. So the same thing could happen here in New York. But I think the point really is that when you're creating split decisions, so let's say if New York has a different decision than the Berkeley case, you know, this could potentially get taken up by the Supreme Court. So I think that the idea is to create enough of a doubt of whether or not this argument stands so that it sort of, you know, becomes a national discussion and it puts other jurisdictions into a state of sort of alarm and scares them into not putting forth similar kinds of electrification efforts, if that makes sense, kind of giving other people cold feet. If the Restaurant Association filed that lawsuit, what are the implications for restaurants of future gas stove hookup bands?

They're claiming that, you know, they can't cook five-star meals without natural gas. Of course, if you're transitioning to electric, you'd be cooking the same meals. It would just be a different kind of, you know, a stove that you'd be using. but they seem to have an issue with this specifically the lack of the natural gas. So they sort of became, you know, the face of this lawsuit there. We have a couple of people writing in to say things like this. As a renter in New York City, gas is included in my rent, but I have to pay for electricity. If I go with an electric stove, I'll have more money coming out of my pocket.

So there's another issue for conversion and for future construction requirements, right? Right. This is something that I think is an ongoing discussion. There are people that feel really strongly about their gas stoves. And I think that has a lot to do with just not being used to something. I think the reason why the All-Electrification Act is also for new construction. Not only is it because it's more cost. costly to retrofit, as I mentioned, but also because it's a way to phase it in so that we can do

it in the long run. In other words, it'll be a slow, gradual change for folks. I think we do need to change the way that we use certain things. It's the same thing with like recycling. You know, you learn to recycle and then in the long run, that's better for the environment. With regards to, you know, the cost, I think that the cost right now is the way it is. is because not enough people are doing it, right? Once everybody is on board, and I think that's going to take a long time until we get there, of course, until we're at the point where we're all electric. But what a lot of folks that I speak with in the environmental world say is that, you know, these prices will adjust in the long run when we have enough of a market for it, if that makes

sense. It's the same thing as like buying a bunch of parts to create renewable energy. Renewable energy is costly right now because a lot of the parts that we use to create these kinds of things come from abroad. So there's not enough of a demand in the U.S. right now to manufacture these kinds of things. And that makes sense. And it's the same thing with this. You know, you don't have enough people on board quite yet. But the hope is that we will get there in time. And these laws are being put in place to sort of create that transition. That's Marianna Samois, climate reporter for city limits, talking with WNYC's Brian Lairor. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC.

Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.