5 of the eight Democrats difficult Eric Adams within the NYC mayoral race tackled local weather change and Hizzoner’s immigration insurance policies in the course of the “Local weather Jobs Justice” candidates discussion board on Feb. 6 on the New York Society for Moral Tradition in Midtown Manhattan.
Some 36 local weather motion organizations, together with Sane Vitality Mission, Dawn NYC, New York Communities for Change, Fridays for Future NYC, and Rise and Resist, co-sponsored the occasion.
Moderators of the occasion had been Fridays for Future NYC member Helen Mancini and Santosh Nandabalan with Communities for Change. The candidates included former New York Metropolis Comptroller Scott Stringer, present New York Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander, state Senator Jessica Ramos (D-Queens), state Senator Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn), and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens), who had been ready to reply questions referring to local weather, job, and immigration insurance policies to the gang of some hundred inside Adler Corridor.
Local weather speak, and pledge
The candidates had been requested if they might decide to a variety of local weather and justice insurance policies, together with the enforcement of Native Legislation 95, which requires carbon caps on 50,000 buildings bigger than 25,000 sq. ft to cut back carbon emissions by 40 p.c by 2030 and 80 p.c by 2050; ending renewable power credit (RECs); opposing the Iroquois pipeline growth undertaking; changing 100 New York Metropolis faculties to all-electricity heating by 2030; and others.
All candidates agreed that performing on the local weather emergency was some of the urgent points and unanimously pledged to assist the problems introduced to them. Many mentioned they felt strongly about doing extra on an area stage to guard the setting because the Trump administration works to tear down federal insurance policies.
Nevertheless, not all signed the pledge to divest town pension funds from the fossil gas trade.
Whereas Stringer, Ramos, Myrie, and Mamdani signed the complete pledge, Lander disagreed with the primary half however signed off on the second a part of the pledge.
Lander defined his half pledge that singling out one asset supervisor by identify would open the door for a lawsuit.
“We bought sued for our fossil gas divestment, and we gained in courtroom as a result of we sat it on a strong authorized basis. However you may’t single out an asset supervisor amongst the 300 that handle for us,” Lander mentioned. “Even when they’re the largest, you’ve bought to [set] requirements throughout the board. And that’s [why we’re] setting the strongest requirements for asset managers of any U.S. public pension fund and teaming up with international asset managers by way of the Web Aero Asset Homeowners Alliance to make them actual for BlackRock — and for everyone else.”
Stringer, who served as Metropolis Comptroller from 2014 to 2021 underneath the De Blasio administration, however, mentioned town ought to have a “zero tolerance coverage for grime polluters.” In 2018, Stringer and then-Mayor De Blasio introduced a plan to divest $5 billion of New York’s pension fund from fossil gas corporations; the plan was authorised in 2021.
“It’s a $300 billion fund. It’s a fund that we will leverage. It’s taking part in chess, not checkers, and it’s not about being timid and being afraid,” Stringer mentioned.
Ramos, chair of the Committee on Labor, referred to her jobs and housing pilot program, which she handed within the State Senate. This system creates jobs within the development trade whereas addressing the housing disaster.
“[It’s] all about investing within the weatherization of our buildings,” Ramos mentioned, “and ensuring that we’re constructing new buildings and all the new housing that’s wanted in a manner that respects our planet. Investing in that alone ought to really yield a really worthwhile margin for our pensions.”
Myrie mentioned he was unafraid to face as much as the fossil gas trade.
“The fossil gas trade has been pushing folks round for many years, realizing the hurt that they’re inflicting to our planet, mendacity about that hurt, and shopping for folks to remain silent and never take motion,” Myrie mentioned. ” So I shall be keen to make use of our pension funds to do the correct factor and to divest and to carry folks accountable.”
Mamdani mentioned all fossil gas corporations like BlackRock cared about was cash, not morals or ideas.
“The one manner [BlackRock] will perceive we’re severe about our commitments to taking up the local weather disaster is that we’re keen to take these billions of {dollars}, we allow them to handle and put them some other place, put them to work with cash managers which might be way more in keeping with the values,” he mentioned.
Migrants and ICE coverage
The candidates had been additionally requested about Mayor Adams’ memo to migrant shelter contractors, stating that if contractors felt threatened, they may permit brokers of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to enter migrant shelters with out a judicial warrant.
Stringer criticized Adams for blaming migrants for New York Metropolis’s fiscal disaster.
“Eric Adams has been hurting migrants, folks undocumented for his entire time period as mayor, and no person has come to the rescue,” Stringer mentioned. “We would have liked somebody to face up and do the numbers and say very clearly that our migrants, our undocumented staff, are the guts of our economic system.”
Ramos, the daughter of previously undocumented immigrants from Columbia, identified that migrants paid taxes, contributing to the U.S. economic system.
“The deportation of households would cripple our economic system,” mentioned Ramos, who shared that ICE raids had been already taking place in her district. Ramos referred to as out Adams for failing to tell migrant dad and mom to file and notarize powers of legal professional to make sure their youngsters had been cared for by somebody they trusted as an alternative of coming into the foster care system if their dad and mom had been deported.
“That’s one thing that’s already taking place in my district, and that can possible proceed to occur except we make our voices heard,” Ramos mentioned.
Myrie shared Mayor Adams had issued an analogous memo directing metropolis hospitals to cooperate with federal immigration officers.
“What this memo does is it goes past our Structure. I’m additionally a lawyer. I can learn the Structure. I can interpret the legislation. That is flat-out unconstitutional, and this mayor is bending the knee, refusing to face up for weak New Yorkers,” Myrie mentioned.
Whereas Adams was in Albany final Tuesday, Mamdani requested the mayor if he would uphold New York Metropolis’s sanctuary legal guidelines, which forestall ICE from coming into New York Metropolis public faculties, hospitals, and metropolis properties except they’ve a warrant signed by a decide.
“He refused to reply that query, punting it to town’s legislation division,” Mamdani recalled. “It is a mayor who has proven us time and time once more that he views the legislation as a suggestion, not as a requirement, not as one thing that needs to be upheld.”
Throughout his tenure as council member, Lander labored alongside then-Metropolis Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito to cross New York Metropolis’s sanctuary legislation.
“It’s galling to see Eric Adams violate them,” Lander mentioned. “We’ve despatched them a requirement letter for each a type of notices and letters in order that we will clarify all of the locations that they’ve been violating the legislation.
