The term “Green New Deal” typically brings to mind progressive politicians on the national stage, like U.S. Representative Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders. But thanks to Red Hook’s assemblyman, Assistant Speaker Félix Ortiz of the 51st District, New York State has a chance to craft its own climate change plan in the same vein.
In February, Ortiz introduced Assembly Bill 5334, which would form a task force to design a Green New Deal for New York. Senator James Sanders of Queens introduced the same bill in the upper house.
Ortiz’s bill appeared one day after Ocasio-Cortez brought House Resolution 109 (“Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal”) to Congress, partnering with Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. The Green New Deal is a proposed economic stimulus and job-creation program that seeks to mobilize an ambitious public response to the existential threat posed by climate change. Its name comes from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the package of public works projects, social programs, and financial regulations that helped lift America out of the Great Depression.
Ortiz doesn’t see much hope for a federal Green New Deal under President Donald Trump, whom the assemblyman criticized for climate denial. “I wish the president would call a national emergency to fund the transition to renewable energy, but that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon, so I believe that New York needs to step up and become a leader in environmental caretaking and an example in how government can protect the environment.”
Assembly Bill 5334 doesn’t specify exactly what a Green New Deal in New York would look like or how it would be funded, although it does set certain goals, such as “meeting 100 percent of New York state power demand through clean renewable sources,” which will help the state become “greenhouse gas emissions neutral by 2030.” “Neutral” means that, while some emissions of greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide) may still occur after 2030, the quantities will be small enough to be offset by newly planted trees or, if the field of geoengineering progresses, perhaps by newly invented carbon-eating nanobots.
The bill also promises job training and a living wage for anyone who wants to participate in the green transformation of New York. It ensures “a ‘just transition’ for all workers, low-income communities, communities of color, indigenous communities, rural and urban communities and the front-line communities most affected by climate change,” with “equitably distributed” investments for “deindustrialized or other marginalized” areas.
The main purpose of the bill, however, is to appoint a 19-member commission to draft more detailed legislation for the Green New Deal. Their deadline would be January 1, 2020. The “task force” would include, among others, the president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the chair of the New York Public Service Commission, and the commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (or their designees). Appointments by the governor, by the Temporary President of the State Senate, and by the Speaker of the Assembly would fill several more seats.
Ortiz, who introduced the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act in 2015, explained that extreme weather and pollution in Brooklyn partially inspired his interest in the Green New Deal, citing the impact of Hurricane Sandy in Red Hook and the breathing problems faced by schoolchildren in the vicinity of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. “I have been working on a lot of legislation addressing our environment, starting from fracking to fossil fuels to renewable energy to jobs that should be created to address the importance of solar panels and wind energy,” he said. “I thought it was about time we moved forward to think about something more comprehensive. Senator [James] Sanders and I happened to be on the same page, and once I put all this together, I reached out to him, and he was willing to carry the bill in the senate.”
Ortiz believes that the New Green Deal task force will “come out with some very strong recommendations” in favor of electric vehicles, energy-efficient buildings, and improved infrastructure. “We have sewers that need to be updated,” he pointed out.
Under Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Works Progress Administration hired government workers to build publicly owned roads, bridges, parks, schools, post offices, and libraries. More recently, President Obama’s Recovery Act of 2009 used corporate and individual tax credits to spur growth in the private sector. Despite its name, the Green New Deal has not yet clearly determined (in its state or federal iteration) whether government will play a direct or indirect role in the creation of jobs or the construction of hydroelectric dams and solar farms. Ortiz’s task force will include at least one “representative from the private sector.”
Ortiz hopes to “engage every sector that can bring a positive contribution, whether it’s the private sector, whether it’s the unions, whether it’s the local leaders and nonprofit organizations on the ground that have worked on this and fought for changes in our environment. I see this as a partnership and a collaboration.”
Private investors own most of New York’s electric utilities, which in many cases use power sourced from petroleum-based fuel oil or methane. Under the Green New Deal, they would switch to renewables.
“We’re working with them, and they’re doing their own transformation little by little. I met with some of them last week, and some of them said to me, ‘We’re moving in that direction, but we need time,’” Ortiz recounted. “Well, how much time do you need? That’s the magic question.” The private utilities “will be part of the conversation, and we will develop timeframes to ensure that we don’t leave them out. They already know that this is happening.”
At the time of his interview with the Star-Revue, Ortiz was working on the state’s 2019-2020 budget, due April 1. “We have put a lot of stuff in the budget to address the local issues, as a result of Sandy, to make sure we have better resiliency in our communities,” he noted. He sees this as a positive sign for the Green New Deal, which would expand upon these measures.
He also expressed confidence in Governor Andrew Cuomo. “The governor has been calling for more renewables, more solar panels, moving forward to ensure that we will be able to have a better environment,” he observed.
As recently as January, Cuomo had supported a plan (less dramatic than the Green New Deal, though he invoked the same term) to source 70 percent of New York’s electricity from renewables by 2030. Meanwhile, a number of legislators have thrown their support behind the New York State Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA), which would reduce that figure to 50 percent. The CCPA has already passed the Assembly three times and awaits the Senate’s approval.
Still, Ortiz has faith in the Green New Deal bill, which the Assembly referred to its Committee on Environmental Conservation on February 8. Jo Anne Simon, who represents Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill in the Assembly, has signed on as a cosponsor. “We’re going to continue to push this legislation,” asserted Ortiz, who expects to see it passed before the end of the legislative session on June 20.
