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2020 has been trying and unexpected for all of us. New Yorkers have faced new and complex challenges with the outbreak of COVID-19, which massively disrupted our city, state, and the world at large. In many ways, this crisis foreshadows future risks exacerbated by climate change, where low-income communities of color and other marginalized groups are hit first and worst by the impacts. Decades of environmental racism have led to disproportionately high rates of respiratory and heart disease in frontline communities, and increasing vulnerability to the impacts of viruses like COVID-19.
In light of these challenges, NYC-EJA, our members, and our partners have continued to achieve historic policy, research, and organizing victories this year, including advocacy over the intersecting impacts of environmental and community resources during a global pandemic. Read below for some of our highlights during the past year, and if you like what you read, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to NYC-EJA.
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COVID-19, Heat Emergency Plan & Extreme Heat Legislation
NYC-EJA released our COVID-19 & Environmental Justice Fact Sheet, outlining how the current pandemic intersects with environmental and climate justice issues for low-income communities and communities of color. NYC-EJA has also long advocated for NYC to address the dangers of extreme heat for EJ communities - policy changes made all the more urgent due to life-threatening COVID-19 complications. In July, that advocacy paid off, with the passage of two City Council laws to address extreme heat in NYC. The first law requires the NYC Department of Health to annually report on neighborhood heat vulnerability and the number of heat-related deaths - as well as an estimation of heat-exacerbated deaths, which have not previously been counted, leading to an underestimation of heat-related deaths in NYC. The second law requires the NYC Office of Emergency Management to develop and submit an annual comprehensive cooling and communication plan. Additionally, NYC-EJA successfully advocated for the City to purchase 75,000 air conditioners for COVID-vulnerable New Yorkers, as well as pushing the NYS Home Energy Assistance Program to add $9 million for cooling assistance and expand the eligibility of benefits for low income New Yorkers.
- Jalisa Gilmore & Priya Mulgaonkar
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EJ Advocates Impact Ill-Conceived Proposed "Cap-and-Trade" Transportation & Climate Initiative
After two years of hard fought criticism, NYC-EJA and our fellow Northeast Climate Justice Alliance members successfully slowed the majority of NE states from signing on to the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) Memo of Understanding - a proposed regional cap-trade-invest market-based ruse to generate revenue from gasoline and diesel suppliers, while promising unguaranteed and unmandated greenhouse gas emissions reductions from the transportation sector. We have sounded the alarm on TCI since 2018, and we continue to welcome genuine allyship from environmental advocates to stand with frontline communities leading with equitable solutions to the climate crisis - not market-based incremental or speculative schemes.
Learn more from CJA's steering committee member in this recent New York Times article, and read our position on TCI here.
- Renae Reynolds
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NYC-EJA Staff Appointed to CLCPA Working Groups and Advisory Panels
NYC-EJA staff were appointed to key Working Groups and Advisory Panels designed to implement last year's landmark NYS Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). Appointments include: NYC-EJA Executive Director Eddie Bautista (along with NYC-EJA member UPROSE's Executive Director Elizabeth Yeampierre), among the nine members of NYS's first-ever Climate Justice Working Group; Transportation Planner Renae Reynolds (Transportation), Policy & Communications Organizer Tok Oyewole (Waste), Associate Director Annel Hernandez (Power Generation), Energy Planner Carlos Garcia (Energy Intensive and Trade-exposed Industries), and former staffer Priya Mulgaonkar (Land-use and Local Government). Our input, alongside other frontline leaders and experts, will help shape the implementation of the nation's most ambitious climate law, which requires the State to achieve a carbon free electricity system by 2040 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The new law will also drive investment in clean energy solutions such as wind, solar, energy efficiency, and energy storage - with a mandate for at least 35% of such funding to benefit frontline communities.
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Eddie Bautista selected among C&S's 2020 Energy & Environment Power100
As part of City & State's annual statewide round-up of leading Energy & Environment "key players who are driving the debate", NYC-EJA's Executive Director Eddie Bautista clocked in at #15. Eddie was recognized for his work managing NYC-EJA's emergence as a "major player over the past decade while advocating for waste disposal, storm resiliency and climate change policies that protect low-income communities." NYC-EJA salutes fellow "listers", including allies from UPROSE, NY Renews, ALIGN-NY, PUSH Buffalo, Environmental Advocates of NY, among others!
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NYC Climate Justice Agenda 2020 Release
During Earth Week, NYC-EJA released our report, NYC Climate Justice Agenda 2020: A Critical Decade for Climate, Health, and Equity, which outlines urgent recommended strategies to enact a Just Transition, including specific timelines and concrete financial and legislative commitments to: create healthy and resilient neighborhoods; tackle emissions in an equitable way; support climate adaptation for frontline communities; and generate good, green jobs in the process. The report focuses on three main themes aimed at achieving an intersectional set of environmental and climate justice goals: (1) Reduce Greenhouse Gases and Localized Emissions, (2) Advance a Just Transition Towards an Inclusive, Regenerative Economy, and (3) Cultivate Healthy and Resilient Communities. Additionally, the report includes an analysis of the overlaps between environmental justice and COVID-19.
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An Equitable Recovery: Climate Works for All Report Launch
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#SaveOurCompost Coalition Partially Preserves City Compost Funding
On May 5th, the Save Our Compost Coalition held a Zoom Town Hall in response to the Mayor's proposal to eliminate funding for citywide organics, which was attended by well over 1,000 participants. Speakers and attendees pushed the City to reverse the short-sighted decision to remove all forms of composting from the City budget, and ultimately, persuaded the City Council to partially restore the community composting program at $2.8 million. The NYC Budget, finalized late on June 30th, partially restored the community composting program, but completely eliminated curbside organics collection; meanwhile it left the NYPD's $6 billion budget basically intact, while sieving vital budgetary resources from other programs, jobs, and services. Read the response statement from the Save Our Compost Coalition here.
- Tok Oyewole
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Advocate-Led Hearings on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
In June, NYC-EJA and Environmental Advocates of New York hosted two virtual public hearings in response to the proposed changes to the State's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) regulations. Our collective engagement ensured that the new RGGI regulations approved in December 2020 abide by the ambitious targets set forth in the NYS Climate Leadership and Community Protections Act, including prioritizing emission reductions, closing the peaker plant loophole, and directing clean energy funds to frontline communities.
- Annel Hernandez
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UPROSE & Community Defeat Industry City Rezoning Plan
Against all odds, the Sunset Park community celebrated the historic victory over Industry City's rezoning application that was pulled in late September. After seven years of organizing, UPROSE, POWWA (Protect Our Working Waterfront Alliance), and allies defeated one of the largest rezonings in NYC history that attempted to add 1.5 million square feet of retail, office, and hotel use in the City's largest industrial zone. The unchanged and outdated application failed to integrate any lessons learned from the COVID-19 health crises and was the epitome of corporate greed that threatened Sunset Park, NYC, and the region's ability to realize the 150,000 climate jobs from the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, and the additional 40,000 a year from NYC's Climate Mobilization Act. Now UPROSE and allies turn their attention to operationalizing the Green Resilient Industrial District (GRID) - a community-led alternative proposal for a comprehensive waterfront plan to create well-paid jobs in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable manufacturing that builds for a climate resilient future centered in equity.
- Summer Sandoval, UPROSE
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Community Conversations on a Renewable Vision for Rikers Island
NYC-EJA alongside member THE POINT CDC, JLUSA, NYLPI, and Bronx organizers hosted a virtual Bronx Community Conversation on "The Case for Renewable Rikers", followed by a Brooklyn-centered event alongside member Brooklyn Movement Center. The Renewable Rikers vision provides a plan for the future use of Rikers that would benefit the communities that have been most harmed by mass incarceration, and would bind the City to the imminent closure of all 10 jails on the island. Rikers can be a hub for sustainable and resilient infrastructure - including large-scale renewable energy and battery storage technology that can move us toward shutting down fossil fuel peaker power plants that have been polluting environmental justice communities for decades.
- Annel Hernandez
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PEAK Coalition Launch, Report Release, & NYPA Collaboration
In May, NYC-EJA, our members UPROSE & THE POINT CDC, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and Clean Energy Group launched a new coalition, PEAK. The PEAK Coalition plans to end the long-standing pollution burden of 'peaker' power plants on the city's most climate vulnerable residents. The Coalition supports the transition away from polluting fossil-fuel peaker plants to a system of localized renewable energy generation and battery storage, resulting in reduced emissions, reduced electric utility bills, improved equity and public health, and a more resilient grid in the face of increased storms and climate impacts. A report prepared by the PEAK Coalition, " Dirty Energy, Big Money," details the egregious negative impacts of NYC's peaker plants on frontline environmental justice communities in terms of health and wealth - and in October, PEAK announced a groundbreaking agreement with the New York Power Authority (NYPA), to work towards replacing the State authority's existing peaker plants with renewable energy and battery storage.
- Carlos Garcia
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Sincerely,
Eddie Bautista
Executive Director
New York City Environmental Justice Alliance
Compiled/Edited by Tok Oyewole
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