To Bring Down Energy Bills, NY Must Invest in Clean Energy Production

AUTHORS: Elizabeth Yeampierre, Justin Wood and Daniel Chu

”Most of our neighbors have received painfully high electricity bills this winter from ConEd. For the millions of New Yorkers facing steep rent increases and rising prices for food and other necessities, this is an especially hard blow, and is likely to get worse this month.

The reason bills have shot up is because during peak demand hours, electricity prices have almost tripled. As ConEd explains, the problem is the rapidly rising cost of acquiring energy on the wholesale market that the utility then passes on to customers. Natural gas prices have indeed been spiking worldwide, driven partly by heating demand during the coldest winter months. Prices for both oil and natural gas are now being further exacerbated as energy markets react to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But there’s much more to this story in New York City that the big energy corporations and their backers in Congress aren’t telling us. Our electric grid is especially vulnerable to price shocks because 70 percent of our electricity is generated by power plants that burn fossil fuels—a sharp contrast to nearby regions that use more renewables like wind, solar and hydroelectric power. These fossil fuel plants are particularly susceptible to demand-driven price spikes, and even worse, the emissions released by these gas-burning power plants are particularly unhealthy for nearby residents, often people of color and low-income communities.”

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NYC’s Waterfront Plan Maps Out Next Decade for City’s Coastlines

“A Just Transition relies on acknowledging past harms and traumas and creating new power relationships to facilitate a society-wide shift to a regenerative economy,” the report says. 

It discusses community land trusts and a community-owned solar project as examples of how city agencies can enable New Yorkers disproportionately affected by the impact of climate change to benefit from a transition to renewable energy. It also highlights a collaboration with community leaders, including UPROSE, a nonprofit in Sunset Park. 

“These projects aim to shift power and resources to environmental justice communities that have endured the lasting effects of urban renewal and fossil fuel-driven industrial pollution,” the report says. “Many of these same communities face growing threats from flooding and heat due to climate change.”

Community Change-Makers: The New Yorkers Combating Climate Crisis, Hunger

“One of the things that I love about UPROSE is that on our staff and on our board are young people growing up in the organization,” Yeampierre said. “That intergenerational part of our cultural practices, you’ll see it show up in the kinds of events that we hold and who facilitates them and how the issues are framed.”

Nyeisha Mallet, a student at Cooper Union, joined the organization six years ago—the position was her first job. Her most memorable campaign was being involved with the fight against Industry City, the complex of old factories  turned into a commercial space which its owners sought to expand through a rezoning last year. 

Concerned that Industry City would gentrify Sunset Park in a way similar to Williamsburg and take away valuable resources for green industrialization, Mallett took part in organizing to voice concerns over the development. 

“Direct action is important, disrupting is important because that’s how we get attention,” said Mallet, “but community-building is the seed to everything else.”

Mallet works with Isabella Correa, a high school junior who joined UPROSE only a year ago but shares her colleague’s passion for community advocacy through intergenerational collaboration.

Correa has attended many climate protests throughout her life, but her involvement with UPROSE felt like a unique opportunity to pursue a just transition where both racial and climate justice are achieved.

“I’m here to learn, and it doesn’t stop once the march is over,” said Correa. 

“If we’re not solving the problem, then these rich white corporations [are] going to do it for us and not in the way that we want or not in the way that we need.”  

Announcements and Investments During NY’s Climate Week

“For generations, black, brown, and low-income communities have been the reluctant hosts of polluting infrastructure and toxic emissions from fossil fuel plants, highways, solid waste, and diesel trucks to name a few, creating a legacy of historic health disparities,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, director of the Sunset Park–based group UPROSE, in a press release. Earlier this summer, Yeampierre met with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and expressed the need for local, community involvement in creating solutions to the climate crisis. 

Opinion: Stop Echoing Industry City’s Bogus Math on Jobs

“While NYC can certainly use 7,000 new jobs, even those numbers seem to bely current economic reports,” urban planner Eve Baron stated in her submitted testimony. Similarly, argued the Sunset Park community group UPROSE, “Industry City is claiming to create 7,000 new jobs based on outdated and pre-COVID analyses.”

Opinion: Industry City Tycoons are Exploiting Pandemic to Advance Rezoning

Despite the classist discrimination that the development lobby and their politicians’ parade, it has never been more important to listen to the voices of local residents and the leaders they’ve elected to decide the fate of this unique community. United Mexicans of America will always stand firm with the people of the Sunset Park community, and we look forward to working alongside well-established organizations like Uprose, Mixteca, and the Sunset Park Popular Assembly to stand against the current proposed plan. United Mexicans of America (UMA) is a local Sunset Park action organization that seeks to catalyze a renaissance within the Mexican community by using Mexican nationalism as the common denominator. Our focus revolves around revolutionary self-reflection, looking at ourselves through multiple frames and being constructively critical about personal history, as well as ancestral history. We believe in critical civic engagement, which includes analyzing the historical roots of contemporary struggles, envisioning remedies and solutions, then manifesting the aforementioned into action in order to change our micro and macro-community.

Brian Garita is the co-founder of United Mexicans of America (UMA), based in Sunset Park

Debate Over Contentious Industry City Rezoning Resumes, As Local Councilmember Opposes Plan

“This rezoning threatened the livelihood of the Sunset Park community of over 130,000 in Southwest Brooklyn,” Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE, a nonprofit focused on promoting sustainability and resiliency in Sunset Park, said in an emailed statement. “After several failed attempts at negotiations for concessions, Council Member Menchaca finally stood firm on saying ‘no’ to a development model that prioritized hedge fund billionaires over the interests of Sunset Park’s working-class and largely immigrant community.”

Friction Over Sunset Park Proposal Reflects Deeper Worries About Industrial Land

He had an opportunity to set precedent to send a message across the bow that developers can’t continue to engage in this way in the face of climate change and certainly not in an industrial sector. He had all the opportunities in the world,” said Uprose executive director Elizabeth Yeampierre. Uprose is a nonprofit focuses on promoting sustainability and resiliency in citywide policy for Sunset Park.

CityView: As They Rally Around Rezonings, Planners Often ‘Plansplain’

On May 2, City Limits published an opinion piece by long-term New York City planner Sandy Hornick about Mayor de Blasio’s housing plan titled “Misconceptions Drive Opposition to de Blasio’s Housing Plan.” The essay argued that protesters at recent zoning hearings fundamentally misunderstand not only the mayor’s plan, but the very idea of planning itself. Rezonings don’t cause gentrification, Hornick argued, and the best way to bring down rents it is to allow developers to keep building more.

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