[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Welcome to Uptown Chats, a podcast where we share stories about environmental justice by and for everyday people. I'm your co host Jaron and and.
[00:00:26] Speaker C: I'm your other co host, Lonnie.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: And today we're talking about an important WEACT campaign called New York Heat that's all about making energy more affordable and supporting New York's transition to renewable energy.
[00:00:38] Speaker C: We'll be joined by Cameron Clark, we act's New York Heat campaign coordinator.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: But before we get to that, Lonnie, can you share WEAC's mission?
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Absolutely. WEAC's mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and or low income residents probably participate meaningfully in the creation of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Thank you. So, a little bit more about the New York Heat act before we jump into our interview. You may or may not know the Climate Leadership and Community Protection act or the CLCPA was passed back in 2019 and committed New York State to reducing emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and then to 85% below 1990 levels by 2050. And those targets were set to help the state address the climate crisis, which is disproportionately impacting communities of color.
[00:01:33] Speaker C: And we also have the New York Heat act, which is the New York Home Energy Affordable Transition, which is what we're going to be talking about today. And it's designed to make energy more affordable and accelerate New York's transition to renewable energy to make sure that the New York State State's public service law as aligned with the clcpa.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Exactly. And the New York Heat act bill has been a few years in the making and it would help end wasteful ratepayer subsidies that build out more gas infrastructure and would help curb utility costs for folks who are energy burdened. Just quickly. Energy burdened for folks who aren't familiar with that term just refers to a household that spends a significant portion of their income on energy costs, generally over 6% of their monthly income. And currently that includes about 25% of New Yorkers. So one in four New Yorkers is currently energy burdened. So this would help out a lot of folks.
[00:02:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it definitely would. And you know, before we kind of get into the New York Heat act campaign and what this bill is, I think we kind of need to go through a little bit of a lesson, right, Jaron, of just a refresher for some of us who haven't had that Civics 101 about basically how a bill becomes a law In New York State.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a good idea because, you know, like I said, the New York Heat act bill has been in the works for a couple years, has gone through some of these stages. So might be helpful to have some context for what those steps are in the process of what actually what it takes to get a bill, you know, from introducing it all the way to the finish line. So, yeah, let's go quick, quickly through what some of those steps are for folks who aren't familiar with that.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Well, I'll start off, I'll kick us off. So the first step is that there's usually some type of issue that needs to be addressed and there's some type of solution that is created. And this usually comes from elected officials. They often come up with these ideas. However, they can come from a lot of other places. So it could be constituents or people like you and me, just everyday folks can come up with the bill. Organizations can also come up with bills that they're calling for in the new law or other state officials as well.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And from that idea, that policy solution to that idea, that gets turned into an actual bill itself. And a bill is really just a set of instructions for changing the language of the laws of New York. So bill drafting requires a more specialized legal training, and it's usually carried out by the staff of New York State's Legislative Bill Drafting Commission.
Sometimes an interested group may have its own attorneys draft a bill, may work on outside of that system. And lawyers working in state agencies and the executive branch often submit their ideas for legislation in bill form. So it can take a couple different processes to actually take the policy idea or solution and turn it into actual bill language.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: And as you can imagine, there are, there are many, many bills, there are many ideas and policy solutions that folks have out there. So they have to go through these bill, once they're drafted, have to go through a committee process which kind of acts like as a funnel in which a large number of bills introduced each session have to pass before they can actually be considered and voted on. And so members of the standing committee, they evaluate the bills and decide whether to report them or send them to either the Senate floor or the assembly floor, depending on which chamber it was introduced for the final decision. So that way the full Senate or the full assembly can actually take a look and vote on the bill.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah. From that point, once it's actually introduced into the Senate or the assembly, each of those respective parties of the Senate or the assembly have the authority to pass the bill in their respective house. So after it gets introduced, there's discussion, debate, a vote's taken, and if a majority of the senators, if it's in the senate, if they approve the bill is then sent to the assembly and vice versa. So if it's introduced into the assembly first and the majority of assembly members approve it, then it gets sent to the senate to then get reviewed.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: So, and then the last step is the governor has to take some form of action. Right. So while the legislature is in session, the governor has about 10 days, not counting Sundays, to sign or veto bills passed by both houses. So once a bill is passed by both houses, sent to the governor and they have to decide whether they're going to sign it or they're going to veto it. However, the governor's failure to sign or veto a bill within a 10 day period means that it becomes law automatically. Veto bills are returned to the house that passed them first together with a statement of the reason for this disapproval. And a veto bill can become a law if two thirds of the members of each house vote to override the governor's veto.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: So that's a pretty quick overview of the process. But again, just to recap the steps, policy idea gets turned into a bill goes through committee, goes through senate and assembly and then either gets signed or vetoed by the Governor and then becomes a law. So relatively straightforward process. But I know some of the details can be confusing sometimes, so hopefully that helps to re familiarize with that process before we jump into our interview with Cameron.
[00:06:49] Speaker C: So with that, let's go ahead and jump in our interview with Cameron and learn more about the New York Heat act and what WE Act's campaign looks like this year.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Let's go.
All right, thank you so much for joining us. Cameron. Before we get too far into our interview, do you mind just giving us a brief introduction? Just tell us about yourself and your exciting new title for sure.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So my name's Cameron. I am a med student at Columbia. Until January of this year, I was one of the Cecil Corbin Mark Environmental Health Fellows at WE Act. And starting this year I am the WE Act New York Heat campaign coordinator for the year.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Great. Which is a great segue to our topic of the day, which is New York Heat Act. So with that, can you just tell us, you know, I know a lot of folks may not be familiar with New York Heat. Can you just give us a little bit of background about the campaign, some of the work that's gone into it so far and you know, what people might expect. I know we have been working on New York Heat for a while, so maybe even just like a timeline or just kind of an overview of what that works has looked like so far.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess to start off, I could sort of explain to folks what like New York Heat is. And basically, so for the past three, four years plus, we've been trying to pass this bill. And essentially what the New York Heat act would do is it would do three primary things. So if you're anybody who lives in New York State, most likely you're paying like utilities either to Con Ed or National Grid or to some power and utility company. If you take a look at that bill, most of the time when you're looking at the bill, the amount that you're seeing that's paying specifically for like your gas, a lot of that actually isn't going to the actual amount of gas that you're paying. There's a huge chunk of it that actually goes to the utility company as like sort of a delivery charge. So the amount that they're getting paid to service those existing gas lines, to keep those things repaired, and then to build new gas lines in your community.
So that's, that's like sort of the, the one primary thing that, you know, New York Heat act is trying to address. So we have folks all across New York City, all across New York State who are paying like these exorbitant amounts to, to Con Edison or to whoever their local utility provider is. Not really even for the gas itself, but just for the maintenance that goes into those gas costs. And so when you look at sort of the structure of New York gas and utility regulatory policy, essentially what the state does is in order to make it really easy for gas companies to connect new folks to the gas line, essentially what they do is they allow utility companies to subsidize those new connections by charging more to some of their existing customers. And they do that through something called the 100 foot rule. So essentially every time a new house is built or a new building is built, or a new apartment building, if that building is within 100ft of an existing gas pipeline, they essentially get to pay to connect the pipeline to that building for free. And that free, obviously isn't free. It's paid for through some of the, the utility rates that go up for everyone across the state. So that's thing number one that the New York Heat act is trying to do is trying to get rid of that 100 foot rule and make it so that, you know, if you want to connect to gas, that's something that you're actually going to have to pay for. But, you know, we're obviously not trying to make it so that, you know, gas is, you know, just more expensive and we don't provide any benefit to folks. So the real thing that it's trying to do is sort of get away from subsidizing gas expansion and taking all that money and putting it into renewable energy development projects. So if you're a neighborhood and in Harlem and uptown and, you know, in the Bronx and you want to build, you know, a solar energy project, you know, a rooftop wind energy project, maybe you want to build sort of like a community scale geothermal project, you know, all of those things are currently a lot more, a lot easier to get funding for if we were able to pass New York Heat Act. So that's the two. So that's thing number one, you know, stopping the subsidizing of those gas companies. Thing number two, increasing our funding for some of those renewable energy projects. And thing number three is if you're anybody who has paid, you know, more than, you know, 100 or $200, if you paid more than 6% of your monthly income on some of those gases and utilities, New York Heat act would actually set a cap so that nobody, nobody is required to pay more than 6% of their monthly income towards their utility costs. So it would set a cap so that everybody is paying, you know, nobody is paying more than a certain amount. So it prevents anybody across the state from being energy burdened or being, you know, unable to afford the cost of living in their home due to some of those utility costs.
[00:12:12] Speaker C: It's really helpful to have that background. And also it's a really good intersection between kind of the climate justice and environmental justice work that we're doing and kind of the affordability crisis that's going on in New York State and that a lot of people are feeling honestly across the country and you know, with projected increases in just cost of living overall now with the new federal administration as well, you know, this is kind of something that is really important and something that is necessary for a lot of folks. So I do have a question about kind of. You said that we've been working on this for about four years now. What does this kind of campaign look like when working on this for four years and what are some of the kind of barriers that we've had so far to getting it passed? Because it sounds like something, because, you know, this is in the policy world, a lot of, you know, who listen to the podcast things sound great for us as consumers and as people experiencing all of these things, but for whatever reason, they don't seem to make it to the finish line all the time. So, you know, can you explain about the campaign a little bit?
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, I can take us back to probably like 2022, 2023, the start of sort of this most recent push to pass the New York Heat Act. So if we, if we look at sort of New York State legislature and I think probably a lot of your, your listeners are sort of mostly familiar with, you know, how legislature at the state work. So you have the, the Senate and then you have the assembly and then you have the governor's office, which is the executive. And so back in 2023, we've had, we were trying to pass this. In order to pass it, you need to essentially get it passed by the Senate and the assembly and then the governor has to sign off on it. So back in 2023, we actually got this bill passed by the Senate. So every year, you know, since 2023, the Senate has consistently passed this bill through, through its own session. We actually have had, in addition to the bill passing the Senate, we've actually had majority support in the assembly for the past three years as well. But unfortunately, the bill never actually made it out of the Assembly's Corporations Committee. So it was sort of, you know, mired and stuck in committee and it was unable to get out. What, what sort of prompted a change was most recently in 2024, which was when Hochul, in her own sort of budget, which sort of lays out her vision for what she wants to accomplish in New York and all of the bills that she wants to pass and the policies that she wants to implement is she actually put, you know, a few of those key tenants of the New York Heat act in her own executive budget. So when we talk about those three things, the 6% cap, we talk about ending that 100 foot rule and ending that subsidy to gas companies, and we talk about, you know, providing some of those subsidies to renewable energy projects. She actually put two of those three things in. She put the ending those gas subsidies, ending that 100 foot rule, and providing some subsidies to renewable energy projects. In the bill, she left out the 6% cap, which, you know, we weren't crazy about, but you know, it gave us something to work off and something to negotiate on. And the Sentinel, you know, as they've consistently been, you know, like a great partner for us, they also, they were fully supportive of all of the tenets of The New York Heat act, all three of those sort of, you know, interconnected pillars. The assembly, you know, we were working with them essentially up until the deadline for the budget, trying to get sort of like to a place of agreement on actually passing this bill and seeing if we can find any area to negotiate. And you know, if folks are familiar with some of the chaos of last year. Right. You know, I think 48 hours before, you know, that budget was due, sort of, Hochul drops this bombshell and essentially declares that she's going to withdraw or back away from her pledge to implement congestion pricing. So in sort of the chaos of that moment, you know, a lot of the negotiations broke down and we ultimately weren't able to get it across the finish line. So there were some objections from the assembly around some of the, those 6% energy affordability provisions. And then Hochul had some other objections, but because everybody was worried about, oh no, are we going to miss out on congestion pricing? A lot of those negotiations ended up falling apart.
But I think the thing to really emphasize is, is that we were so close. We were, we had all the parties at the table, we had everybody willing to make a deal and we were really ready to take this home. And it was really just sort of that external thing that really didn't have anything to do with New York Heat that sort of threw a wrench into some of those negotiations. So for 2025, new year, new us. So we're trying to come back with like a fresh strategy and fresh ideas, but also like, you know, a renewed determination to get this bill across the finish line. I think that, you know, you, you speak to legislators, you speak to folks who have been talking about this for years at this point who are ready to sort of just like, all right, let's do it, let's move on, let's get on to the next thing. We have a lot more challenges to tackle. Can we, can we finally get New York Heat across the finish line? So, you know, this year we have a new sponsor in the Assembly. You know, the previous assembly sponsor actually moved over to the Senate and we have actually, you know, we've had some remarks from Carl he, who's sort of the, the assembly leader, talking about how, you know, maybe he's a little bit more open to New York he day. And so we're really trying to make sure that the assembly and Hochul are feeling the pressure to get this across the finish line and deliver this win that would give drastic price decreases for huge amounts of low income New Yorkers.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Now I'll take that as my segue. There's so many things I want to unpack there or touch on, but for the sake of time, I won't get to too many of them. But I think it's interesting that the affordability piece, the cap for energy bills, is a bit of a sticking point. You think that that would be. I would think that would be priority number one. Everyone's thinking about affordability, cost of living, and that that is a sticking point. Or didn't make it into Hochul's pieces. And executive budget is interesting to me. But I mean, that really touches on one of our next questions that we have for you, which is how are New Yorkers, you know, the average New Yorkers, especially folks in environmental justice communities, how are folks going to benefit from the New York Heat act and what will actually look like for folks on the ground? I think you've kind of touched on it a little bit, but spilling that out a little bit more specifically. There's a lot of work that's gone into making this happen. There's a reason for that. Right. It's going to bring benefits to folks. But can you speak a little bit more about what that would look like if you are successful this year? I'm trying to manifest for you when you're successful this year, what this looks like for folks.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. No, I appreciate that. And I think we can go micro to macro if we're talking about the benefits for folks. So, you know, I think a benefit that really goes underrated in some of these conversations. You know, we talk about affordability, we talk about, you know, sort of getting gas out of homes and renewable energy. I think a huge benefit is that, you know, the less gas that we're having in folks homes, the greater the impact on folks health will be. You know, New York City and specifically, you know, upper Manhattan in the Bronx have some of the highest rates of asthma in the entire state. You know, if you look at the Bronx and the South Bronx specifically, they have rates of asthma that are double the rates of every other borough in the city combined. So we have. It's a huge disparity and it's predominantly impacting folks who are black, folks who are brown, and folks who are low income. And so removing some of those, those gas hookups and making it easier for folks who are making new buildings to make the choice to build electric as opposed to gas would have a huge impact on the health of some of these communities and making it less likely that some of those young, vulnerable folks who don't have the ability to make that choice for themselves, are able to avoid developing asthma early in life. In this day and age, I think folks are also very concerned about affordability and cost. And you know, I think that 6% cap is like huge for households. So, and so essentially what this would do is this would, instead of folks paying, you know, 10, 15, 20, 25% of their monthly income on just utilities, as we see in some of the conversations that we have with community members, this bill would essentially say that nobody is going to be rendered destitute because of the cost of their utilities, because of the cost of their gas. And so we're trying to accomplish that through a bunch of different regulatory measures to achieve that 6% cap, but that ultimately the goal is to set sort of like an upper limit on the amount that these utilities can feasibly charge some of our most vulnerable low income folks in the state.
And I think it's also, you know, important to not underrate some of those, those macro impacts, which is, you know, New York State made this commitment through sort of the CLCPA to achieve some of those fossil fuel targets or those goals of reducing its fossil fuel emissions. And I think that we're not really going to get that unless we start heavily subsidizing and heavily investing in renewable energy projects in New York City and across the state and we start to really avoid introducing additional pipelines into the ground to provide gas to homes. You know, we're really only going to get there if we actually start to invest in these renewable projects. And I think that's the third thing that the New York Heat act is really trying to do.
[00:22:04] Speaker C: Yeah, leave it to the med student to bring in the health impacts, positive health impacts.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: We got it.
[00:22:09] Speaker C: Which I want to kind of circle back a little bit to just because I think a lot of people, when they think of their experience with fossil fuel mostly is kind of either if they're not, they don't have a car. Especially in New York City, it is kind of the gas stove in your home, which is very dangerous. There's a lot, there's a lot in terms of pollutant, indoor air quality issues that go on. But then also, you know, these things explode. You know, we have buildings that have gas issues and leaks that can lead to explosions in buildings and can be relatively unsafe as well. And so kind of transitioning off of the fossil fuel in all aspects of our lives is really important for sure. I just like to emphasize how much of a industry campaign that was like even the Phrase, now we're cooking with gas was developed and created on purpose. Right. It wasn't. It was not an accident. And electric stoves were the dominant type of stove that we had in homes for such a long time until kind of the natural gas boom kind of came through parts of the US But I will pass it to Jaron.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: Yeah, well, speaking of, speaking of campaigns, I appreciate all the context about the New York Heat act itself, what benefits it will bring to New Yorkers, and when you emphasize that it's a part of a campaign that we act is working on to help move it forward. Like we said before, it's been a couple of years in the making. There's some changes in the landscape that we're hoping will make it likely to succeed this year. But can you tell us a little bit more about what, what the work looks like this year to help get it across the finish line? You know, you touched on having a little bit more support, potentially in the House, a new sponsor.
What might it look like for folks that anyone's listening wants to get involved? Like what, what might the, what might they expect to see with the campaign this year?
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. You know, I think that, you know, we're in a really interesting time right now where, you know, the, the obstacle last year or the sticking point last year was sort of that 6% cap and folks sort of waving their hands about, how are we going to pay for that? Are we going to afford that? Is it going to make utility prices go up for everyone else if we impose that 6% cap? But in the years since, you know, I think a huge topic for folks across, you know, across the political spectrum across the country has been affordability and the cost of living. So I think we're in, like, a really interesting time period where we have all these elected officials in Washington and Albany and City hall in New York City all talking about how to make the cost of living cheaper for their residents, for their constituents. And we're holding up this thing on sort of like a silver platter saying, like, hey, have you considered this thing that we've been working for for a few years now? So I think that there's, like, a really huge opportunity for us to, like, utilize some of that energy and that excitement for affordability to push this bill. You know, I'm not sure when this podcast goes out, but if you, if you listen to it on the fourth, you know, I likely be in Albany with a coalition, like, campaigning for the New York Heat Act. So we'll be rallying up In Albany tomorrow. We'll be there all day meeting with legislators, you know, talking on, on the steps and like having those conversations with folks about the New York Heat Act. But if you, if you want to get involved in future days, I would definitely encourage you to come to some of our Climate Justice Working group meetings and you can find out more about this campaign and figure out where you can actually slot in to get involved. If this is something that excites you about, you know, having lower bills, about having more, you know, renewable energy job opportunities, about having less gas in your home, in your space, around your kids, around your family, if any of those things sound good to you, then I would definitely encourage you to, to reach out and join our campaign.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: Great. And for folks who are intimidated by the idea of getting involved with some of the work at the state level, going to lobby days and things like that. One of our previous guests and we staff, Brianna Carbajal, has done a great video about what that experience looks like. And we're going to include a link in the show notes for folks to check that out because it can seem intimidating. And as someone who's gone to one of those before, I remember the first time, it feels like a lot. It's like, it can seem like a daunting task, but, you know, you're there with other folks who are in the same position who are new as well. But also you have lots of folks who have been there and done it a dozen times. And we'll guide you through the process and it's a great experience. So never gone to a lobby day. It's definitely worth participating in. And also, like Cameron said, lots of other ways to get involved. And I know the Climate Justice Working Group is a fantastic way to do that.
[00:26:53] Speaker C: So one more thing. If Cameron, if you want to just shed a little bit light of why it's important for people who are not necessarily getting paid full time to go to Albany, like, why is it important for folks to show up for kind of these kind of campaigns?
[00:27:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think, number one, you know, I think this is your right. You know, these, you know, these elected officials, they ultimately work for you and they represent you. And so they need to hear from you if they're going to be able to effectively represent your interests and the interests of your community to the governor and to the rest of the legislature. So, you know, if you have something that's on your mind and something that's bothering you and you don't speak up, then they're not going to hear that. And they're not going to be able to communicate your interests to their colleagues in Albany. But I think the second part that's really important is that this is an issue that is so contentious. There's so much money, like the gas lobby and the fossil fuel industry has so much money that they're spending on campaigns, on, you know, donations, on advertising, on online ads, like all these different avenues that they're trying to influence both you, but also influence the folks that are sent to the Capitol to represent you and to convince them that this is like a thing that, like, won't work, or this is a thing that's like, irresponsible or ineffective or we'll never actually be able to accomplish, so we shouldn't even try. So they have, you know, on that side, on the fossil fuel industry, they have plenty of money. They have way more money than we do. But, you know, what we have that they don't have is number one people, but number two, the folks that actually vote. So I think, you know, if you want your elected official to understand what will keep them in their office, what will keep them in their. In their position beyond voting, you know, I think this is an opportunity for you to make your voice heard and make clear to these folks that this is something that is central and important to winning your vote whenever they have their next election.
So I think that's, it's, it's your right. And I, you know, I think to a degree, I think it's. It's your responsibility, if you have the ability to do so, to make your voice heard.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Thank you for that, Cameron. With that, I think we can go ahead and pivot and give you a chance just to share any other thoughts, remarks, comments that you think are worth noting, either about New York heat, about the campaign, just things that you think folks should know, or just anything else that you want to plug about the work that you're doing.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think the one other thing, that, one other thing that I would mention is if you can't make it up to Albany, if you can't make it to a lobby day, you know, definitely it's always fine to send email, send a text, call your legislature, you know, send an email to Kathy Hochul, to the governor. There's all these different opportunities to make your voice heard. And I think, especially if you work a job where you can't take an entire day off to take a trip up to the Capitol, like, I think that there's still a multitude of different opportunities to make your voice heard. And I'd encourage you to. To try any of those, and I can probably pass those off to y'all to include in the show notes as well.
[00:30:14] Speaker C: Well, I don't have anything else to add to that. I think that's a perfect way to close out. Cameron, we appreciate you coming on talking about this. We know you're gonna be leading us to victory alongside the support of our members here at WE act and the rest of the policy team as well.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: I appreciate you having me. Thanks so much.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: This is the year we're calling it. We're calling it this year.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: We gotta put that energy out there, that positive, renewable energy you gotta put out in.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Thanks for listening. If you like this episode, make sure to rate and review the show on whatever platform you listen on. If you have thoughts about the show, we encourage you to reach out to us with your thoughts and
[email protected] check.
[00:30:54] Speaker C: Out we act on Facebook at weact4ej. That's W E A C T F O R E J, Instagram X and YouTube. Act 4 EJ. That's WEAct number 4 EJ. And check out our website, weact.org for more information about environmental justice. Until next time.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Until next time.
[00:31:12] Speaker C: Bye.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: Nailed it. Bye.
