NYC's Building Emissions Law Goes Into Effect

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, our Climate Story of the Week, which we do every Tuesday on the show today, information and advice for New York City residents about the city's landmark emissions reduction law, which took effect earlier this month. Local Law 97 requires owners of buildings larger than 25,000 square feet to track and report their greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite some pushback from critics of the law and climate activists alike, the city has allowed a two-year grace period for certain buildings to implement changes that would lower their emissions. If building owners fail to reduce them to a certain level, however, they will be subject to fines. Buildings account for approximately two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions in New York City. We've talked about this before, but many people don't realize it. If you think about cars and maybe power plants or something, buildings account for approximately two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions in New York City, say the official estimates.

Joining us now to talk about the implementation process so far and take your questions is Rohit Aggarwala, chief climate officer and commissioner of New York City's Department of Environmental Protection. Joining us to answer some of your technical and financial questions are Simon Mugo, program manager of NYC Accelerator, and Andrew Chintz, financing specialist at the group NYC Accelerator, which provides free guidance to meet energy efficiency upgrades for buildings. Simon and Andrew, welcome to WNYC, and Commissioner, welcome back.

Rohit Aggarwala: Thank you, Brian. It's great to be here. Thanks for having us back.

Simon Mugo: Thanks, Brian.

Andrew Chintz: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we will open up the phones right away for you on this. Landlords, co-op and condo owners, renters too, this is for you. Who has questions about how to comply and who can help us report this story with your experience of recently retrofitting your building perhaps, or hitting obstacles to more energy efficiency in your building? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. Commissioner, remind everyone again of Local Law 97 and the scope of what is required at this point.

Rohit Aggarwala: Sure. Thanks again for having us on this topic. Local Law 97 was passed in 2019. As you point out, it targets our largest source of emissions, which is buildings. It creates a set of limits that buildings over 25,000 square feet have to meet. Starting already. This law is in effect now as of January 1st, 2024. Some buildings, about 1,600 buildings have work to do.

We think they may be in violation or, hopefully, they did work in 2023. They're better than their 2022 data suggests. A lot more buildings, something like 15,000 New York City buildings have to do work to get their emissions down to their 2030 targets. Then there are further declines in 2035-2040 en route to carbon neutrality in 2050. We spent the last two years getting the rules in place so that building owners know what their targets are, how this is going to be managed, what the enforcement process is going to be.

As you pointed out, buildings that are in violation in 2024 will have the option to produce a decarbonization plan. While I know some people have characterized it as a grace period, it is a grace period where we are willing to withhold fines for 2024 and 2025. In exchange, the buildings not only have to come into compliance with their 2024 targets but demonstrate how they are going to come into compliance with their much more ambitious 2030 targets.

If they don't continue that work on in '26, '27, '28, '29 on route to their 2030 targets, we can still go back and find them for their violations in '24 and '25. It's not just letting buildings off the hook. It's really getting them on the path to this much more aggressive reduction that is what we need. At the Adams administration, we have shifted gears now from focusing on how we enforce to actually ensuring that buildings have the financing and the technical advice that they need.

We are advocating at the state level so that the $5 billion that the Public Service Commission will put into energy efficiency upgrades between 2026 and 2030, that a large chunk of that goes to help buildings that are going to have to comply with Local Law 97. We're hoping the City Council will act to enable J-51, a tax credit that will help affordable housing, including low and moderate-value condos and co-ops of which 3,000 across the city. We're not talking about luxury condos on the Upper East Side. We're talking about co-ops and condos on the Grand Concourse or in Flushing.

They're going to have to do work. They would be eligible for a property tax credit if the City Council acts on this. We're really focused on helping buildings get the work done because that's really what saves the planet is the work, not the fines. That's what the NYC Accelerator is for. The Accelerator is a city-funded service that Andrew and Simon and their colleagues are available to help buildings figure out what they have to do, get advice on how to find funding and financing.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get to Simon and Andrew from the Accelerator and some of that advice in just a minute. Commissioner, just to be super clear for listeners who may be hearing this and wondering if their buildings are covered by this law, I said in the intro, buildings of at least 25,000 square feet, but people don't think in those terms. Roughly, how many apartments would have to be in a building for it to probably hit this threshold?

Rohit Aggarwala: Well, you think a one-bedroom apartment might be about 1,000 square feet, so that's probably a 25 to 30-unit building would be covered. The good news is, actually, the vast majority of buildings are already in compliance for 2024. We were very pleased that a bunch of buildings managed to reduce their carbon emissions between when the law was passed in 2019 and last year when we got some data from 2022. Only about 11% of covered buildings are out of compliance for 2024.

Brian Lehrer: That's a pretty good start. Simon, co-op members and building owners of other kinds are being asked to track and report their building's emissions. Tell everybody what that looks like in practice. What kind of technology is used to measure those emissions and how does it get submitted to the city?

Simon Mugo: Yes, thanks, Brian. I think just going back to a point that you brought up a few minutes ago, I just want to clarify that in terms of Local Law 97, the easiest way to determine whether or not your building is subject to the law, the Department of Buildings actually published a covered buildings list. This list has all the different addresses and building block and lot numbers indicating which buildings are covered under the law.

I think a good practice is what Commissioner Rohit mentioned, which is just getting a sense of what square footage your building has, and then determining whether or not you would qualify based on that square footage. Also, the Accelerator is a service that is here to help. If you're not sure, you can give us a call. We can verify or take a look at your address and confirm whether or not your building is covered under the law.

Just back to your question, Brian. In terms of how the emissions are calculated, it's really just based on the amount of energy your building uses. On an annual basis, a number of buildings are already benchmarking their energy usage as a result of Local Law 84. Typically, on an annual basis by May 1st of every year, you would report 12 months of your electricity and other fuel usage. If your building runs on natural gas, you would then indicate to the city how much natural gas in addition to electricity and other fuel sources that your building used over the past 12 months.

The process has really improved since the law was passed. It's very automated in some cases where, through Energy Star's portfolio manager platform, you can have the utility. Both Con Edison and/or National Grid, you can have them upload your electricity/natural gas usage directly onto the platform. On an annual basis, the requirement would be just to verify that the energy usage that was reported actually includes all your electric meters because some buildings have multiple meters. In the case of a building that uses oil, you would have to manually upload your energy usage.

Typically, that's the basis to determine what your baseline is in terms of your energy use, and that the rule provides emission factors. Each fuel has a certain amount of carbon emissions assigned to it. As you can imagine, oil has more carbon emissions than natural gas and electricity has a different factor as well. The way to determine your emissions is by factoring in the emissions factor and calculating that based on the amount of energy you've used throughout the year.

Brian Lehrer: Now, I think Laura in the Bronx has a question on one of the big ticket items that owners of buildings may be looking at. Laura, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Laura: Hi. I have three questions and I'm trying to be very specific. I live in a co-op in the Bronx. I have what I think is a regressive co-op board. I brought up the idea of rooftop solar several years ago. They poo-pooed it. They said, "Oh, well, our roofs aren't big enough. We couldn't," blah, blah, all kinds of excuses. I don't think they've ever actually provided any proof that we couldn't do rooftop solar. That's one issue. How do we budge a co-op board that doesn't want to get up? The second question is, if I want to get rid of my gas stove and invest in one of these electric cooktop cooking devices, which I would be delighted to do, does that require rewiring the whole building or can I do that as an individual apartment in a co-op?

Brian Lehrer: Two great questions. Andrew, you want to take them?

Rohit Aggarwala: I can actually jump in on the solar question. You bring up a really good point and that's actually a service that we provide as the Accelerator. We do provide a free solar analysis to evaluate whether or not solar is a good fit for your building. We look at shading, we look at the size of your roof, and we also look at your utility bills to determine or to give you a sense of what the savings could be based on the physical limitations of your roof.

Once we complete that analysis, we would then give you a summary of the results. We can present to your co-op board just to explain what this actually means and provide assistance as needed in terms of identifying what the cost estimates could be factoring in the various incentives. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has a great NY-Sun program that offers incentives for solar.

Actually, at this point in time, based on the Inflation Reduction Act, there's been an increase in the amount of tax breaks that you can get as a result of installing solar. They're really at the highest point that they've been in the past few years. That's something that we can factor in to help you analyze and determine whether or not that's a project you would like to pursue. If so, we can also help connect you to contractors that can do the work.

Brian Lehrer: On the electric cooktops and whether the whole building needs to be rewired?

Rohit Aggarwala: Yes, I think that's really on a case-by-case basis. It depends on the existing wiring in your building. I think there are incentives to cover or reduce the cost of purchasing the electric induction stoves. In terms of whether or not you would have to rewire the building, that's really on a case-by-case basis that it's hard to say on a blanket term whether or not you would have to do that.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org. We are in our Climate Story of the Week, which we do every Tuesday on the show. Today, we're talking about New York City's Local Law 97, which took effect on New Year's Day, January 1st of this year.

We're talking about some of the requirements or an aspect. Some aspects of it took effect this year. We're talking about how buildings can meet the requirements if the buildings are larger than 25,000 square feet to track and report their greenhouse gas emissions as requirements for lowering greenhouse gas emissions, or at least coming up with workable plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Those requirements come into effect with the appointee of Mayor Adams, who's leading this charge. Rohit Aggarwala, the chief climate officer and commissioner of the Environmental Protection Department of the city, and answering some of your technical and financial questions are Simon Mugo, program manager of NYC Accelerator, and Andrew Chintz, financing specialist at NYC Accelerator.

They provide free guidance to meet energy-efficiency upgrades for buildings. Here's a question from a listener that's come in. Andrew, maybe this is for you. It says, "Local Law 97 is grossly unfair to modest-income, nonprofit co-ops like mine in Queens. We are being singled out for huge unexpected costs that may bankrupt us." As the finance person in the room, what would you say to the people in that co-op?

Andrew Chintz: Thanks, Brian. As was mentioned, the New York City Accelerator provides guidance on all types of services and resources to help you get this work done in your building. As the financing specialist, I help provide guidance, identify financing, help navigate the financing. The buildings have access to a number of financing programs. When Local Law 97 was passed under the Climate Mobilization Act in 2019, it was coupled with Local Law 96.

That authorized something called PACE financing, stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy, which is a clever way of financing these energy efficiency improvements on a long-term basis. It's paid back on the tax bill. PACE financing has been authorized in over 35 states. We've adopted it now in New York City. This is a great way to finance this work on a long-term basis. By being long-term, it helps make the payments smaller because it's paid over a long term that's reflective of the useful life of what you're financing.

That's a great way to make it more affordable. Even as a nonprofit, even though nonprofits don't typically pay property taxes, you still have an account with the Department of Finance for your property tax bill. It's a zero balance because you don't pay taxes. You can still access PACE financing as a nonprofit. That's one way to finance the work. If PACE is not a fit for your building, it doesn't work for every type of building.

We also have a number of non-PACE financing options. We have several specialty finance companies or green banks that will finance this work. There's equipment lenders. There's other types of products that are energy service contracts, which you can finance all of the work with a single provider that does the work as well as funding it. Again, every building is different. We encourage you to come to the Accelerator. We can focus in on your particular needs.

Brian Lehrer: There's online access for the Accelerator because a lot of people may be wondering about that now. Andrew, you can finish up on that point.

Andrew Chintz: Online, you mean how to access the Accelerator?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Andrew Chintz: Yes, certainly. We can make that available. We have an outreach desk that takes in calls or emails. They will dispatch to the various resources at Accelerator that will be able to answer your questions. We can make that available.

Rohit Aggarwala: I think just accelerator.nyc is where you go and you can get all of that hooked up.

Brian Lehrer: There you go.

Rohit Aggarwala: Brian, if I could chime in a response, a couple of points I'd make to the person who-- First of all, nobody's being singled out. These are standards that are across all New York City buildings. Some buildings have a much higher carbon footprint than others because of the way they're designed or the way their occupants are using energy, et cetera. A building like the one that this person lives in is exactly why we have this approach towards a good-faith effort. One of the things we have found over and over again is, frankly, people are getting very bad advice.

I hear, "Oh, this law is going to bankrupt my building." Who told you that it's going to cost so much? All my boiler guys said something, right? The reality is, what the decarbonization plans that are going to be required of buildings that are in violation but don't want to pay the fines, that requires going out and getting professional help that can actually analyze what the range of alternatives are.

There are all sorts of startups, many of them based in New York City, that have started up providing innovative solutions, often including financing for buildings based on what kind of radiators they have, what kind of boilers they have. Some of these are really, really nicely tailored. Building owners and managers and boards just need to put the effort into getting smart advice and then they'll do fine.

Brian Lehrer: Let me get one more caller in here. Sam in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sam.

Sam: Hey there. I'm talking from the perspective of an owner and operator of commercial office buildings. I've lived and breathed the analyses. I fully understand the methods of how the carbon footprint is calculated based on the law. I think there are a couple of things that, I think, Brian, you mentioned something about workable plans. There's obviously a meaningful mission here with the local law, but the devil's in the details.

I think one of the issues that's out there is I, for example, have a building where we spent more than eight years trying to get additional capacity to that building from ConEd for electricity. Much of the goal of the programs the way they're structured require that buildings take things like steam-powered chiller plants or gas-fired systems and convert them to electric.

I think one of the things that nobody in the political sphere is talking about is the capacity in the streets of New York, which are congested with telecom and power and subway, other types of infrastructure that the ability to bring power to the building to allow for these conversions simply isn't being thought about. The two questions I have, I wonder what the administration is thinking about in terms of addressing that issue because that directly plays into the cost, including to the consumer. Because when ConEd upgrades the street, guess who gets to pay for that in their transmission and distribution charges?

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner, sounds like--

Sam: The second question I have--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead real quick. Go ahead.

Sam: Yes, real quick. The second thought that I have is, how does the administration think about the impacts of COVID, which have taken the inventory of office buildings? There are many significant numbers underwater right now. The timing of the local law requirements and fines could not be worse. I wonder how they think about that.

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner.

Rohit Aggarwala: Well, I think one of the reasons that we embraced this good-faith effort approach is recognizing that the pandemic took something on the order of two years out of the ability of buildings to deal in a normal circumstance. Boards and owners were, for a year or two, distracted and legitimately so. That's part of our thinking in this. However, the reality is the fact that we suffered a pandemic did not mean that climate change is going to slow down and wait.

We've got to get ahead of this. All you have to do is look back on the flooding we had on September 29th and ask yourself, "Well, how much did that cost New York City? How much did that have an impact?" On the same people who want to complain about Local Law 97 compliance costs, they were also complaining about having water in their basements and having the subway shut down because of flooding. It's all connected.

We can't slow down to when it becomes convenient because climate change is never going to be convenient to address. Now, to the specific point. Number one, I'd say it's actually very easy to mistakenly assume that the only way to comply with Local Law 97 is immediate and full electrification. That is not at all the case for most buildings. Again, this idea of a good-faith effort and a decarbonization plan is exactly what we want buildings to take a hard look not at going from 0 to 60 all at once, right?

They don't have to become carbon-neutral all at once, but to take steps. The rules do acknowledge that where the primary blocker to a building moving towards electrification or moving rather towards compliance with Local Law 97 is that they have sought the load letter from Con Edison and they have been unable to obtain it. That will be a reason for a building to have their target delayed because we know the building's doing everything they can.

If ConEd is the delay, that is not the building's fault. Two, this overall point, there is no question that the costs of upgrading our electric infrastructure and switching to renewable power, our costs are all going to have to pay, but that's not specific to any one building. That's a society-wide issue. Again, it's inescapable because we could just keep killing the planet. Eventually, the city is going to be underwater.

Brian Lehrer: We are going to leave it there for today as we are out of time. That's our Climate Story of the Week. We've been talking about Local Law 97 taking fuller effect in New York City as of the beginning of this year. My guests have been Rohit Aggarwala, chief climate officer and commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection for the city, and NYC Accelerator's program manager and financing specialist Simon Mugo and Andrew Chintz respectively. Again, the web address, if you're looking for how to advise and other information on making your building more energy-efficient, you can go to accelerator.nyc. Thank you all very much for coming on.

Rohit Aggarwala: Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having us.

Andrew Chintz: Thank you.

Simon Mugo: Thanks for having us.

 

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