Electeds, advocacy groups: Big Oil pay up

When I was a kid, my mother said what everybody else’s mother said to them, ‘you make a mess, you got to clean it up.”

JEFFREY DINOWITZ, Assemblyman

Several elected officials and environmental groups have a message for so-called Big Oil. They want those petroleum-producing companies to pay for the costs related to climate change in New York state.

They met at City Hall Park on Nov. 29 to urge Gov. Kathy Hochul support legislation that would make Big Oil companies to pay for climate damages. That is what the Climate Change Superfund Act, introduced last year by co-sponsors Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and state Sen. Liz Krueger, is intended to do. It would require companies who have contributed considerably to the buildup of climate warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to pay a share of the costs in infrastructure addressing climate changes.

At a Nov. 29 press conference at City Hall Park the Assemblyman Dinowitz and Sen. Krueger  were joined by Councilman Eric Dinowitz; City Comptroller Brad Lander; Blair Horner, executive director of New York Public Interest Research Group and Eric Weltman, senior organizer of Food and Water Watch and several environmental groups.

“Oil companies are the tobacco companies of yesteryear,” Assemblyman Dinowitz said in a livestream broadcasted by Food and Water Watch. “They have been destroying our environment for many, many years. They’ve lied about it. They’re spending a lot of money to continue to lie about it and who’s paying the price? All of us are paying the price. And the signs behind me say it all and it’s true. When I was a kid, my mother said what everybody else’s mother said to them, ‘you make a mess, you got to clean it up.’”

Via the climate change adaptation cost recovery program, those biggest contributors to climate damages would have to collectively pay $3 billion a year, the assemblyman explained.

“Oil and gas companies lie to everyone for decades and decades and decades so they could maximize their profits and guess what?” asked Krueger. “They’re making more money than they’ve ever seen before continuing to destroy our environment and guess what? They’re paying lobbies to continue to lie to us. Everyday constituents call every elected official to say ‘my utility bills are out of control, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’”

During the event the elected officials, a coalition of environmental groups and NYPIRG released a report showing taxpayers are the hook for tens of millions of dollars  related to climate damages.

Their report shows that the future climate cost estimate in New York City would be $162.9 billion or $50,906 per household. (The report did not specify what the future time period includes.) The current annual climate cost estimate in the city is $1.8 billion, or $562 per household.

“A few numbers to remember, $750 billion of oil company profits in the last two and a half years, tens of billions of dollars in cost to New York City residents and New York State,” said Horner. “Big oil companies should pay $3 billion a year each in the next 25 years to offset the costs of the poop that they have left in our atmosphere.”

Assemblyman Dinowitz and Krueger acknowledged concerns of those who fear the passage of the legislation would drive oil companies and gas companies to leave the state. She said that while those companies sell to the state, they don’t have jobs in the state.

“Big oil does not have a big footprint in New York state, it just doesn’t,” Assemblyman Dinowitz said. “So when the highly paid opponents of this legislation go out and say ‘it’s going to cost us jobs,’ no it won’t. When they say ‘it’s going to raise the price at the pump,’ no it won’t.

“Not every oil company is going to be assessed this fee to make up the damage they caused. I would think that people who believe in competition and capitalism would understand that the companies that don’t have the ticket and therefore won’t raise their prices are forcing companies that do have the ticket not to raise their prices.”

Councilman Dinowitz said the financial aspects of the legislation are important, for constituents it is not about the money but how climate change impacts their lives. He referenced when the Major Deegan Expressway was flooded in 2021 and how during hot summers older adults often seek refuge in libraries for cool air.

“When I was a teacher, the number one reason students were absent was because of asthma and it is especially acute in the Bronx,” Councilman Dinowitz said. “Our air quality, everything is suffering. And with these funds, with this legislation, we will be able to help start to address some of those problems. And as we said, this is a mere drop in the bucket for them, but the funding can actually make significant positive impact on the lives of our constituents who are paying for this.”

Comptroller Lander noted that last September marked the warmest September ever recorded on Earth, with the same applying to October. During the climate summit in Dubai, just one day after the City Hall Park conference, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said 2023 would be the hottest year on record, Forbes reported.

“The urgency of climate change is real,” Lander said. “The climate crisis is not coming, it is already here. We saw that with Tropical Storm Ophelia, as we were just reminded, and of course we saw that in Hurricane Ida and we saw that in Superstorm Sandy. And I think the point that we already have more deaths from heat than from flooding is important. This year, hundreds of New Yorkers died as a result of heat.”’

Both versions of the bill are currently in their respective legislative body’s committees. The lawmakers have asked Hochul to put the legislation in her executive budget.