In September for Climate Week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced sweeping plans to reduce fossil fuel use, and therefore emissions, from existing buildings’ heating and cooling systems. The plan lacked details, but those were to come in the form of draft legislation that was supposed to be introduced as early as October and passed by the end of the year.
That would have been extremely fast action for such a major proposal, but the timing is not arbitrary. The City Council is unusual as a legislative body in that it is always in session, due to its role in the land use process (ULURP), which has temporal requirements and where there are always active projects that the Council might need to vote on. But every four years, with new elections, the Council turns over, and its docket is cleared. That means that all bills not passed, die, and must be re-introduced by the new Council (in this case, with a new Speaker) after the new year. There is a mad rush for new and returning members to reintroduce bills, including taking over sponsorship for proposed bills previously introduced by members no longer on the Council.
Seating new members, picking a new Speaker, re-shuffling Council staff, setting a new agenda, and other such processes take time, so the mayor wanted to pass emissions legislation under this Council, this year, before the disruptions. One hesitates to make predictions, but it looks like that will not happen. Even with all this going on, it’s still possible that the City will move quickly on their climate agenda. Remember, as next Tuesday is election day for mayor and city council, who are elected every four years, on their own, odd-year cycle.
