Problem:
The Department of Environmental Protection refuses New Yorkers’ air pollution complaints if they are not submitted in English.
Solution:
The City Council should pass Intro. 5 to permit ALL New Yorkers to help clean up our air.
The City Council must stop DEP’s discrimination and pass Intro. 5!
Call your Councilmember to ask them or thank them for supporting Intro. 5!
Intro. 941—deceptively labeled an “improvement”—gravely threatens to dismantle the world’s most effective citizen-led clean air enforcement program.
Intro. 941’s Dangerous Rollbacks:
50% Award Reduction
Slashes participant awards by half, to 12.5%. Penalty revenue that would not exist without citizen involvement.
5 Days to File
Breakneck reporting deadline slashes participants’ time to submit complaints from 90 to 5 days.
Lethal Exemption: Poisonous School Bus Plumes Devastate Young Lungs
1800% Surge: Toxic bill lets buses adjacent to schools idle 16 to 18 full minutes each hour when temperatures fall below 40°F or exceed 80°F.
Banning Participants
Allows DEP to set a code of conduct and ban participants for failing to act in a “dignified, orderly, and decorous manner” or for failing to “demonstrate familiarity with [DEP’s] rules”—inviting government overreach.
90 Days for DEP to Serve Violations
Doubles DEP’s permitted time to process air pollution complaints from 45 to 90 days.
Overbroad Grant of DEP Rulemaking Authority
Dangerous shift in authority allows DEP to create its own rules for air pollution submissions rather than issue summonses based on air code violations as defined by our elected City Council.
Vote No on Intro 941
Idling vehicles emit toxic pollutants that poison our air, ravage our climate, and endanger the health of New Yorkers, with the heaviest burden falling on our children and our underserved-community neighbors. The Citizens Air Complaint Program is our frontline defense, proven to reduce idling and protect public health. Breaking it would be catastrophic
Lawmakers must safeguard this vital program and resolutely OPPOSE this bill that seeks to silence the very citizens fighting to keep our air clean. The choice is clear: Reject this bill or watch while companies like Con Ed, Verizon, and Amazon steal New York’s breath, one idling engine at a time. VOTE NO on Intro 941. Protect our air, our children, and our future. Anything less is a vote for polluters over people.