Making Carbon Polluters Pay for Cleanup

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now our Climate Story of the Week with New York State Senator Liz Krueger of Manhattan who is leading a push for a bill to be passed in Albany this month designed to make polluters, not taxpayers, pay for damage to the climate that they cause with their emissions and that the government will presumably have to pay to adapt to. We'll talk primarily about that in our Climate Story of the Week and also touch on some other issues that will come to a head this month as the state budget is due on April 1st. Senator Krueger, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Liz Krueger: Thank you so much, Brian. Nice to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start by making this very local and very concrete. You held a big press event for this bill at Chelsea Piers, the sports complex on 23rd Street at the Hudson River. Why Chelsea Piers?

Senator Liz Krueger: It was really because we wanted the visual of the Hudson River behind us because as the oceans rise and the rivers rise, the potential increased damage to lower Manhattan multiplies literally as we speak. We were trying to highlight, "Remember that storm when all of this area flooded? That's going to be nothing compared to where we're heading unless we reverse the damage of climate change."

Brian Lehrer: Tell us about your polluter pays bill.

Senator Liz Krueger: Thank you so much for having me on, and I was so glad to see several congressmen take up the charge and submit an op-ed in support of my bill with Jeff Dinowitz in the assembly. Basically, it's a model like the Superfund. We found the polluters, we want them to help pay for the damage they've done. This bill would basically send a bill to the 35 largest oil companies in the world. We have economic data showing exactly how much damage they have done to our climate on a year-by-year basis going back almost 100 years, but our bill doesn't go back that far.

We would charge them approximately $3 billion a year as an assessment for the next 25 years, which would bring us $75 billion just to help with the overall costs of dealing with the damage we expect between now and 2050, which the government itself evaluates as being at least $100 billion between now and 2050 just for New York State. We're basically saying, "Hey, we know taxpayers are going to have to pick up a lot of this cost, but we expect the polluters to contribute and so we're going to bill them under this law." It's that simple.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take calls on our Climate Story of the Week for State Senator Liz Krueger on the so-called climate superfund bill that she's proposing and hopes to get through the state legislature and get Governor Hochul's signature on it this month. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer, or anything else relevant to Senator Krueger and the budget dance in Albany right now because we will touch on some other things not just our Climate Story of the Week in this segment.

Can you lay out some of what you think those costs will be to New York State? Because people listening to your last answer might have had their eyebrows raising, their ears popping out of the sides of their heads, and thinking, "Wait, it's going to cost the state government of New York State that much money to adapt to climate change in the coming years? What would all that money be spent on?"

Senator Liz Krueger: In the legislation, we talk about it being used to upgrade stormwater drainage systems, which is part of that flooding issue I just said. Defensive upgrades to our roads, our bridges, our subways, and transit systems. Moving and raising, and retrofitting our sewage treatment plants. Guess what? When a sewage treatment plant goes under water, it doesn't help us. Of course, installing new systems in our public buildings. The truth is the costs are going to be much greater than $100 billion of what we have to do to move to renewable energy, but this fund would be specifically to mitigate against the damage we already know we are facing in our future. There's no getting around it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Here's John in Bradley Beach in Jersey. You're on WNYC. Hi, John. Oh, sorry, that was my clicking error. My engineer is going to put John on the air the right way. Hi, John.

John: Hey, Brian. I just wanted to ask your guest if there's an intention in New York to sue the fossil fuel industry because many other states are doing that. I know New Jersey is doing that, again, to get those damages that we know that we're going to incur. A handful of states have done this, including other locations, municipalities, and whatnot. Is that the intention here?

Senator Liz Krueger: The intention is to pass a statute saying you owe us the money. Will they pay without probably bringing a lawsuit to stop us? Yes, we think they will. We've been working with a national group of law professors on environmental law who are absolutely convinced that we would win that lawsuit. By the way, since you're in New Jersey, our bill is designed to be picked up and taken by any other state who also wishes to do the same thing because the $3 billion they owe us, we believe, is based on the number of people who live in New York.

New Jersey could make the same claims for a smaller number because you have fewer people. California's looking into it already. In fact, we actually got our New York bill introduced as part of the Biden Bigger Better Rebuild bill.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] That was a good-

Senator Liz Krueger: [laughs] That's right.

Brian Lehrer: -mashing of Build Back Better.

Senator Liz Krueger: Joe Manchin had it pulled out. This is follow-up on your previous guest, Brian. Mr. Manchin makes all kinds of trouble all the time because do I think my law would be more important at the federal level? Sure. I want the same thing for all 50 states, but the feds, so to speak, currently dropped the ball so I brought it back to my capital saying, "Let's do it in New York. Let's watch other states do the same thing."

I think it's really important to understand this is not a new tax that can be rolled over to consumers. It's not a carbon tax, and so it's not conflicting with other proposals going on in other states and our own state. Our governor has proposed a cap-and-invest program. This would not conflict with that at all.

Brian Lehrer: I'm sure companies and others would push back on what you just said like this, that consumers will pay, New Yorkers will pay one way or another as taxpayers if you don't pass this bill for all those costs you were laying out, storm, drainage, everything else, but as customers if you do pass this bill because the companies will bake the cost of the superfund into the price of their products. True enough?

Senator Liz Krueger: The economists tell me no. Very interesting. We've been working with brilliant economists and lawyers and scientists, and they point out that the companies-- For example, Exxon as one of the 35 companies has made so much in profit. Just currently, they've doubled their profits from '22 to '21. They have so many billions of dollars in excess profits that they won't even try to increase their prices because, ironically, if they increase their prices, they're competing with everyone else in the market who doesn't have to pay this and wouldn't be increasing their prices.

It would actually be a business loss for them to try to roll it over to consumers. The vast majority of these 35 companies aren't even in the US. They're multinational. Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco, and of course, Shell, BP, they're not even mostly anywhere in New York. They might sell product in New York, but they're not New York corporations. This is actually a win-win for consumers and not an increase at the gas pumps, even though that's of course what the companies will say, but it's not true.

Brian Lehrer: Little pushback here, I think, from Gino in Manhattan. Gino, you're on WNYC with State Senator Liz Krueger. Hello.

Gino: Hi. I certainly agree with the sentiment, but there's a real logical problem here. Are you going to start charging cows for releasing methane into the air because they contribute more to global warming than anything that the gas companies are doing in my view? Then you're heading down a slippery slope because then you're saying, "You as a meat-eater, you are contributing more to this problem and I'm going to start charging you for eating meat." It's a bit absurd. I get the idea, but once you start going down this path, you're really heading down a slippery slope. That's my two cents.

Brian Lehrer: Gino, thank you very much.

Senator Liz Krueger: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: I don't know that that's factually true that-

Senator Liz Krueger: No, it is not factually true.

Brian Lehrer: -the methane that cows emit outstrip the fossil fuel emissions just to that point, but he does have an argument there about slippery slope. If you're doing this now, what we know is a huge contributor to climate emissions in New York State is buildings, right? Are you going to start charging a tax on all the landlords and the condos and co-ops and everything like that, that kind of thing?

Senator Liz Krueger: There will be a different discussion on a different bill, but those bills have already been passed. The city's already passed bills that unless the landlords retrofit their buildings by X year and all new buildings can't be gas effective and a couple of years, so we're already doing that also. By the way, the slippery slope here, Brian, the real one is the end of the planet. Nobody gets to do anything because the planet ceases to be livable. We have to think out of the box, we have to do an enormous amount of work, and work with our scientists, and get everybody on board to do the things we need to do, which means, frankly, getting off of oil and gas.

These companies ultimately are going to be basically sunk costs stranded assets. When people who are investing in these companies tell me, "That will hurt my profits," I assure them their profits are going to go down the tubes when the law start to come into effect that they can't use oil and gas anymore, that none of us can. They'd be smarter to pull out of those investments now and go into investments in green energy.

Brian Lehrer: What about the agriculture industry because those methane emissions from raising cattle are significant?

Senator Liz Krueger: We had a hearing on this issue among other current proposals for climate change, and there were several environmental organizations there who talked about how that methane not necessarily coming out of burps in cattle, but rather from the feces from cattle. That there is a serious methane issues, that there are models that can turn that into energy, and take some of it out of the environment. There are people actually thinking about that and working on that already, but I am not actually in agricultural science or agricultural economics, so I would just have to refer you for another really interesting conversation about that.

Brian Lehrer: To a state senator from someplace other than Manhattan, I guess. [chuckles]

Senator Liz Krueger: [laughs] Yes.

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad that we straightened out the difference between burps and actual feces there. Ken in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ken. Oh, I did it again. All right. Ken in Brooklyn is going to be our next caller, and we have him now. Hi, Ken.

Ken: Hey, what's happening? I was just curious, how do you ensure that these companies actually pay these fines because we know that these companies have a history of trying to avoid any kind of real accountability? Also, how do you make sure that they pay that out of profits as opposed to higher prices and fees, and stuff like that?

Senator Liz Krueger: The paying out of profits comes from the economic analysis that this would actually make them less competitive with the other 500 companies in oil and gas that wouldn't have to pay so that they would choose to pay it out of excess profits, rather than putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage with their business competitors. As far as getting the money, that's a great question because there is a whole history in the courts and in our federal government law about how you get money out of people who owe you money who are not cooperating, some obviously goes into international court cases.

Almost all of these companies actually keep large sums of assets in US institutions and so there would be an ability to freeze their assets if they didn't pay them voluntarily. Again, I prefer that storyline for was a federal bill and it was the entire country versus one state, but we're a big state. If we go down this road, I am very sure several of the other large states will follow quickly. These companies weren't going to not want to continue doing business in our country, so they'll pay the money.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're in our climate story of the week, which we usually do on Tuesdays but we're doing it on Monday this week because of scheduling issues, with State Senator Liz Krueger, Democrat from Manhattan who was introduced a polluter pays bill in the state legislature, which he hopes will create what she calls a superfund like the federal Superfund law, all that money that goes to clean up toxic waste sites primarily.

This superfund would be a charge on companies that have polluted and continued to pollute in the climate context to give the state government enough money to pay for all the adaptation that will have to take place in the coming years and coming decades. The next question I guess is, will this get through the legislature and will it be signed by the governor? Here's Governor Hochul with a few seconds of a general promise that she made in her inaugural address on New Year's Day.

Governor Kathy Hochul: As we protect our future generations and their rights, we're going to continue to lead the nation and our ambitious plan to combat climate change and protect our environment because no place on Earth has more God-given natural treasures than New York.

Brian Lehrer: Is Governor Hochul on board with this bill if it gets through the legislature?

Senator Liz Krueger: We have had meetings with several of her key staff and we have presented the information. I don't know that we've gotten any official answer from the governor, but as you just pointed out, she's been clear about New York State having to take all of the steps necessary to protect our future. Disturbingly but relevantly, recent studies show that the two areas in the country that are likely to face the greatest climate change costs are New York City and Long Island. We can't pretend this is someone else's problem, this is our right here at home problem.

Brian Lehrer: Why would it be New York City and Long Island facing the greatest cost from climate change? Why not a place like Miami?

Senator Liz Krueger: One, because of the population density up here and the projections on the rising oceans. For example, the federal government has recently released a report on what it would mean to build a seawall just to protect Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn along the waterfront. They're talking about a $55 billion project for just one project.

Brian Lehrer: You may not have Governor Hochul's commitment yet, as you were just saying. What about your colleagues in the Senate and the Assembly? Does it look like this bill is going to sail through with super majorities of Democrats in both houses or is there opposition within?

Senator Liz Krueger: I'm getting very positive responses from my Democratic colleagues in the Senate and the Assembly. Nothing ever sails through. I will say that each time this proposal has come up, most recently in two different hearings, one, a climate change hearing, and two, the budget hearing specifically around environmental issues, my Republican colleagues, with all due respect, almost read the same speeches over and over and over again. They always use the gas-burping cow example, so I feel that that might not be an original issue today for you.

They also talked about we need a plan, not a ban. We did a three-year scientists-driven plan for New York, it's called the Climate Action Plan. The council recommended a plan, and that's what we're trying to implement, and we need money to do so. Yes, the fact that there are so many written scripts for people who are willing to come out as climate deniers to me says [unintelligible 00:18:16], this is real.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Those are the Republicans. You have a veto-proof majority of Democrats. Unless you have a bunch of Joe Manchin's, meaning Democrats who will vote with the Republicans on climate bills--

Senator Liz Krueger: I think this can happen. Yes, Brian, but I think the point is the industry knows that can happen. That's why they're spending so much time and effort writing scripts about stupid side arguments, rather than confronting the fact that we need to all get on board. This isn't a partisan issue, this can't be a partisan issue. This has to be a save the planet, save our state, save our country issue.

We all need to get on board to get off of fossil fuels as fast as possible, shift to the newer renewable options we already have, and invest in them, but also try to hold the polluters who did all of this to us responsible for some share of the damage they have caused, and they are so knocking us with the amount of profits they're making.

Brian Lehrer: Do we have other polluter pays bills in New York? We've had conversations on this show in different years on things like making companies that produce a lot of plastic packaging responsible for the disposal costs rather than simply placing that on the buyers of the products that are heavily packed in plastic or the local sanitation departments. I'm not sure those bills ever get passed.

Senator Liz Krueger: I think there are variations. If you remember, we've had the bottle bill in New York for 25 years, I think.

Brian Lehrer: Deposit bottles.

Senator Liz Krueger: If people this year could increase it from nickel to a dime and expand the kinds of bottles that are in that program. There is several bills. There are several, including a portion of the governor's budget herself that create a model for pretty much every industry having to figure out how to take back the products when they are finished and no longer usable, or the packaging of the products. It's a big complex set of issues so the governor has a proposal that my conference doesn't love. My own conference has two different bills to address it. I think the assembly has several others. We're, I think, as governments looking very hard at those questions again.

Again, separate issue not competing with my climate adaptation superfund, not competing with capital invest, just different assignments, how do we get the stuff going into our waste stream reduced? How do we get plastics and harmful products out of our waste stream? Again, and you know this, Brian, there's no messing around anymore. We've got to do everything as fast as we can.

Brian Lehrer: A few more minutes with New York State Senator Liz Krueger who has proposed the polluter pays bill with respect to the climate that we've been talking about. In our last few minutes here, I want to touch on some other New York State budget hot buttons because the budget is due at the end of the month, so things are going to come up. This may not be a budget item per se, but it's folded into all these bills and debates that are taking place right now.

That is, once again, what to do about bail reform and other criminal justice measures. I want to play you a clip of Mayor Adams from CNN State of the Union yesterday when he was being asked about Congress plus President Biden overruling a criminal justice reform for Washington DC that Biden considered too soft on crime, and also to the defeat in Chicago of Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Here's Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: The polls were clear, New Yorkers felt unsafe and the numbers show that they were unsafe. Now, if we want to ignore what the everyday public is stating, then that's up to them. I'm on the subways, I walk the streets, I speak to everyday working-class people, and they were concerned about safety.

Brian Lehrer: We see what happened in the suburbs of New York and even some parts of the city. Senator, there's just an article in The New York Times today, maybe you saw it, about certain areas within the five boroughs that have a lot of Asian Americans, and how much some of those areas went Republican in the November election largely over the issue of crime. Are we going to see changes to the bail reform this month in Albany?

Senator Liz Krueger: I don't believe there are any proposals to change bail within the budget, so no, I don't think any are going to pop up in the budget. If you're asking me whether there will be continuing discussions, of course, things can always change, particularly if you learn that something's not working. We're trying to work off of data. We held a hearing on the data sources around bail reform changes, including of course that much of the country has the same laws we now have, and it does not seem to correlate with any increase in crime. There are increases in crime all over the country. Are you still there? I think I've been signed out.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. No, we've got you.

Senator Liz Krueger: Oh, okay. That's fine. Great. Sorry, my machine said signed out. All over the country, crime has gone up more so than in New York City. Crime is going up in New York City. Gun issues I think are the biggest concern for almost all of us living in New York, which our bail reform has nothing to do with. I know, speaking for myself, I would love to work on improvements in criminal justice to decrease crime on the streets, to get guns off the streets, to increase the success rate of the police in catching criminals. That's a very disturbing thing to me.

Apparently, the data shows that the actual closing of cases by police has been plummeting. If you commit a crime and you never actually get caught and brought to justice, that's a much bigger concern to me than some seriously questionable data about what bail has or hasn't done since we reformed it.

Brian Lehrer: How about housing, including reform of so-called 421-a, the tax break for developers who include a certain amount of below-market-rate housing in new buildings? The governor and the mayor want so much new housing construction in the city and the suburbs. The suburbs are pushing back. They don't want all that density imposed on them by the state. In pursuit of affordability in New York City, is it fair to push this on the suburbs and what kind of incentive, if any, do you support for developers?

Senator Liz Krueger: Oh, so that's a lot of questions rolled into one.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs]

Senator Liz Krueger: We ended 421-a and I'm very glad we did. The city was spending $1.7 billion a year of its taxpayers' money building a tiny number of affordable units, and basically continuing a program that started in the '70s that turned into a luxury housing supplement. It was never intended to be an affordable housing program, and it never worked successfully. Am I open to a new program that actually guarantees the taxpayers' money goes to actual building of affordable housing? Yes, I am. Nobody has put one on the table yet so I don't think that will happen in the budget, although you never know.

I think we should be doing anything and everything we can to preserve existing affordable housing, protect tenants, and build new actual affordable housing, but with all due respect, we cannot be in the business of using taxpayer money to supplement over-market rate and luxury housing. That time is way past. On the suburbs question, it's a fascinating question because we know that suburbs were almost designed originally by plan to not allow lower-income people or people of color to live there, and many of them have never addressed that issue for 100 years.

I applaud Kathy Hochul for saying, "We're going to deal with this," because we know New York City can only have so much space. We can't expand it, so we need our suburbs in our region to actually have affordable housing where people can live and they can come into our city to work We need a great mass transit system, and that's another question, Brian, and you know that. We need to make sure we have a great and expanding mass transit system because when New York City fails, the whole region fails and ultimately the whole state. We have to do smart planning on all of these issues. Housing and mass transit are crucial, crucial, crucial.

Brian Lehrer: There's a lot in play this month in Albany with the New York State budget due on April 1st, and so many issues that affect so many New Yorkers in so many ways all folded into these things. State Senator Liz Krueger, Democrat from Manhattan, always a good conversation when you come on the show. Thank you very much for joining us today.

Senator Liz Krueger: Thank you for inviting me. Please invite me back any time.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

 

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