Outside of Donald Trump’s New York City-based Trump Tower, Mayor Bill de Blasio didn’t mince words. “It doesn’t matter who you are, even the president of the United States, you have to obey the laws of New York City,” de Blasio said, as reported by Reuters. What’s he referring to? Oh, just that if the Trump Organization doesn’t reduce carbon emissions from its own buildings in New York City, they’ll be slapped with a little $2.1 million dollar per year fine, starting in 2030.
Of course, this law doesn’t apply only to Trump. It’s a citywide effort to reduce emissions and will impact the largest buildings in the city. And we’re talking large; these properties have to be more than 25,000 square feet, which is big anywhere, but colossal in New York. According to the mayor’s office, these buildings are responsible for almost 70% of the city’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. So this isn’t going after the little man, which is nice to see.
As some background, the city passed this legislation back in April. It passed with a 45-2 vote, which is pretty sweet. It’s called the Climate Mobilization Act and the general point is to reduce carbon emissions in New York City by 40% by 2040. From there, the goal is to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. As a clarifying note: This is separate, though obviously in the same vein, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s federal Green New Deal.
For effect, de Blasio tweeted a “bill” to Trump properties. This includes $469,848 for Trump Tower, $239,315 for Trump Palace, and $850,871 for Trump International Hotel and Tower.
In its statement, the mayor’s office claims that Trump’s eight buildings release about 27,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases each year. To put this into perspective, this is the same as the total from almost 6,000 cars.
Yikes!
Interestingly, there’s been a lot of talk about Mayor de Blasio jumping into the race for 2020. If so, the timing of this would be pretty interesting.
What do you think about the Climate Mobilization Act? Do you want to see other cities follow?