Cohen rallies to save bag fee

Councilman Andrew Cohen rallied at City Hall last week to muster support for a five-cent plastic bag fee, which the City Council has approved but the state Senate has sought to block. 

Under the City Council’s law, grocery shoppers would have to start paying five cents for each plastic bag they receive, starting in two weeks. But the state’s Assembly and Republican-controlled Senate responded with its own bill, prohibiting cities with more than 1 million residents from introducing bag fees. 

The bill still needs to be signed by state Gov. Andrew Cuomo before it can become law. Unless that takes place within two weeks, New York’s City Council law comes into force. 

“New York City’s adoption of a five cent plastic bag fee is environmentally friendly policy,” Cohen said in a statement about his Feb. 5 rally. “Numerous other municipalities across our country have introduced similar fees and have seen a large reduction in the usage of plastic bags.” 

Environmental activists have lauded the law, which imposes a five-cent fee on plastic bags taken at grocery stores in order to incentivize the use of reusable grocery bags. 

Cohen has also praised the plan, saying in June that New York needs to reduce the more than 9 billion plastic bags that end up in landfills each year. 

If the state Senate bill is passed, Cohen argued, it would set a bad precedent for city issues in the future. 

“The state legislature’s bills to nullify this law will usurp upon the domain of the city,” he said. “Which would create a dangerous precedent where Albany could overturn any municipality’s local laws.” 

Engel speaks out on refugees, Trump

Congressman Eliot Engel has compared President Donald Trump’s executive order to suspend immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries to past denials of entry to Jews fleeing the Holocaust. 

Trump motivated his executive order by concerns terrorists might enter the country. But in an interview on Feb. 3, Engel compared the thousands of refugees and travelers who were stranded at airports across the United States as a result of Trump’s executive order to the plight of Jews during World War II. 

“I used it as an analogy to say when German Jewish refugees were fleeing Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, they had the boat, the S.S. St. Louis, and tried to cross into American Waters and they were denied,” he said. “Most people went back to Germany and a majority of them were killed…that was not one of the proudest days of our country’s history.” 

Engel also likened the argument of Americans during World War II—that ships of Jewish refugees might contain among them German spies—to the arguments of conservatives today as well.

He said the United States should not turn away people trying to escape war torn countries like Syria and Iraq.

“We cannot turn people away,” Engel said. “I’m not saying let everybody in regardless of circumstance, regardless of vetting, no vet people, make it difficult to prove that people are clean…but don’t slam the door.”

He also spoke about Trump’s recent diplomatic snafus, like a phone call with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico.

“I don’t know what President Trump is trying to do with Mexico,” Engel said. “I don’t know what the purpose is of insulting the president of Mexico by saying ‘We’re going to build that wall and you’re going to pay for it,’ obviously they’re not paying for the wall.”