(soft intro music) - On this special edition of New York NOW, will New York borrow $4.2 billion to combat climate change?

Voters will decide on the ballot this November.

We'll dive into how that money would be spent and why the state wants to do this now, so you what you're voting for.

Then, New York passed a trail blazing law in 1885 to protect workers, but now some say it should be changed.

We'll tell you why.

I'm Dan Clark, and this is New York NOW.

(upbeat dramatic music) - [Man In Background 1] Today, the Senate Majority will pass legislation.

- [Man In Background 2] I will fight like hell for you every single day, like I've always done, and always will.

(indistinct chatter) - Welcome to this special edition of New York NOW, I'm Dan Clark.

This week, we're taking a break from the news of the week to highlight a few things we think you'll care about.

Up first, a big choice in November, but it's not about politics.

When you head to the polls this year, there's going to be an extra question on the ballot, and it's really important.

Voters will decide if New York will borrow $4.2 billion to combat climate change and address damage done to the environment.

And there's a lot of different ways that would happen.

The money would be used to upgrade the state's infrastructure, protect our drinking water, fund new renewable energy projects, and a whole lot more.

It's called the Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act.

We wanted to give voters as much information as possible about this.

So we sat down with two people who've been working on this issue for years now.

That's Liz Moran from Earthjustice and Kate Kurera from Environmental Advocates New York.

(upbeat music) Liz and Kate, thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate it.

So we are talking about the Bond Act.

It's gonna be on the ballot in November.

It's a specific question about how is the state going to spend $4.2 billion in terms of combating climate change and environmental measures there.

Kate, I wanna go to you first.

So can you lay out broadly what would the $4.2 billion be spent on?

Because if I'm a voter looking at the ballot and I see $4.2 billion, I'm gonna wanna know where it's going.

- Absolutely, great question.

So yeah, $4.2 billion for climate mitigation, flood risk prevention, restoration, open space, water quality improvements, are really large four buckets, big buckets of project spending.

Another thing to note is the $4.2 billion, 35% of that should be spent, will be spent in disadvantaged communities.

- What do you mean by open space?

I think that gets lost.

- Yeah, so this was a habitat preservation money for our parks and recreation.

During the COVID pandemic, we saw flocks and flocks of New Yorkers going to use our parks.

So upgrades for those, acquiring land, for preserving open space that will help with climate change and other areas.

- So let's dive into the buckets as we see them, Liz, I wanna ask you about the climate mitigation bucket, which is the biggest bucket, I think, as part of this.

So what are the measures that we we're looking to spend the money on there?

Is it just about renewable energy?

Is it climate mitigation?

Is it climate adaption?

Is it all of the above?

- So the Bond Act is certainly all above and that's what's quite important about it is that it does attack the climate crisis from a number of different angles, but we're particularly excited about some of the mitigation pieces that this would be funding.

For example, some of this funding would go towards electric school buses.

Right now kids are sent to school mostly in diesel buses and diesel is known to be quite toxic.

And that's a health risk to the kids on the bus, the bus driver, parents, disadvantaged communities, and you know, the general public.

We need to get diesel vehicles off the road broadly speaking.

So this would fund electric school buses, which is very exciting.

We should be transitioning our fleets to electric vehicles as we transition off of fossil fuels.

And what's so exciting about electric school buses is the batteries are quite large and they can serve as backup batteries for the grid.

- Oh, cool.

- So they can actually help power homes as well.

Yeah, I thought that was sort of an interesting fact.

- Yeah.

- So we're really excited about that piece.

It would also help towards electrifying buildings.

The building sector makes up one of the largest sectors of greenhouse gas emissions in New York State, and so some of this funding would go towards electrifying our schools or electrifying public buildings.

So these are some really great starting points.

- Now, in terms of electric school buses, can any of this money be used, or I guess maybe we don't know yet, but will any of it be used to help consumers transition away from gas powered vehicles to electric vehicles?

Do we know that yet?

- This is primarily geared towards public spending?

- [Dan] Okay.

- Hopefully the state will be looking towards other means of incentivizing consumers to transition off of their fossil fuel vehicles and towards electric.

There's been a lot of talk of funding for electric charging stations, but this is primarily geared towards public spending.

- So let's dive into another bucket, water quality, which is so important.

I mean, we see just here in the capital region, Hoosick Falls had PFAS chemicals in their water, just awful for years and years and years, we see this in different places across the state.

So Kate, what are we talking in terms of water quality, that bucket, what goes into that in terms of spending?

- Yeah, absolutely, so water infrastructure improvements.

So huge upgrading our sewer lines, our wastewater treatment plants, you know, a number of different crumbling infrastructure, lead service line replacement.

That's really a big concern in the state at the moment and something that our organizations have spent a lot of time drawing attention to.

So these water quality improvements are really critical for providing clean water and access to New Yorkers, as well as dealing with these emerging contaminants.

So now that the state has required maximum contaminant levels for a number of different contaminants, such PFAS, we are now gonna start testing for these and these contaminants are gonna be showing up more and more in different community water systems and we need the funds to start addressing cleaning those toxics up.

- Right, so just to clarify, it wouldn't just be money just to detect these, it would be money to fix these problems as well.

- Right, installing the treatment systems that are needed to take those kind of contaminants out of our drinking water.

- So also on water, you have the flood mitigation bucket.

I think that was one of the buckets.

We see this problem in areas across the state, but we especially saw it in last September when Hurricane Ida just absolutely wrecked parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

So would that be the kind of money that we're looking for in terms of building up infrastructure to prevent that flooding or are there other ways to address it?

- I'll start, but Liz, you could probably jump in here.

Yeah, I mean, there will be a number of different mechanisms, I suppose, to address flood in terms of adaptation infrastructure that can help provide barriers and part of that is a wastewater too, ensuring we have systems that can take the flow, you know, the flow of water away.

There's also a lot of natural barrier and a lot of natural systems that can help address floods.

So wetland restoration, open space, protecting streams and other kind of natural water bodies.

- Yeah, I think what's important about the Bond Act is it would fund so many natural restoration pieces that would help mitigate flooding.

Wetlands are essential for preventing flooding plus a number of other fabulous benefits to funding wetlands protections.

You know, and I will note that New York City was devastated by flooding and it wasn't that long ago people still are reeling from the impacts of Irene upstate.

- Right, and that was almost a decade ago.

- [Liz] Yeah.

- And, and just to have the effects still happening, it's major for some people.

- The costs are tremendous as well.

I mean, people don't often think about the climate crisis being right here and right now, but it really is, and we've seen it through these superstorm events.

Scientists have been saying for decades that we're going to see more frequent and more severe storms.

And yeah, we've been seeing that here in New York and that's come with such a major price tag.

So, in the scheme of things, this $4.2 billion is drop in the bucket when it comes to the amount of money that'll leverage for the state.

And also just a start for how much we'll need to do.

It'll lead to tremendous benefits and ultimately, help public health and prevent ideally future crises that cost us money.

- Now when I'm a voter and I'm looking at the ballot and I see that this is being spent on all of these things, another concern that might come to me is the management of this money.

So, Liz just sticking with you for a second, beyond the allocations that we have in each of these buckets, who decides how this money is being spent, like allocated on the ground level.

- So there will be different state agencies that'll be tasked with the spending of this money.

Much of the money was delineated in the budget process.

So the way the Bond Act has been proposed, a number of lines have already been carved out.

- Just to add on to some of the benefits that Liz was mentioning.

- [Dan] Sure.

- You can't have not mention that about a hundred, a thousand jobs will be supported through this money.

So it's not only environmental benefits, there are no number of good green paying jobs that will also flow.

- And what kind of jobs are those?

Are we just talking about manufacturing jobs?

Are we talking about, well, I guess you tell me.

- Well, I mean, there'll be infrastructure improvements.

So every time we invest in some wastewater treatment improvements, different adaptation improvements, green energy, renewable energy jobs, transitioning states.

So there really are countless.

- This Bond Act isn't a new thing.

We had a $3 billion Bond Act that was supposed to be on the ballot in 2020, I believe.

And that was pulled because the state's economic situation wasn't doing so great, this year we're doing very well.

So Kate, what are the consequences, if this doesn't pass, can we do a redo, can we try again?

Or can we, I guess my question is we have all these ambitious climate goals here in New York.

Can we meet them without the Bond Act passing?

- We are at a time here and now that we need this measure to move forward.

And I think we have the political support and the public support, which actually at this point is more important.

And we know we have public support.

I mean, the public is very much supportive of clean water and clean air.

These things pull very high, We passed an Environmental Rights Amendment last year with overwhelming support.

So we know the public wants these things.

We know that the public cares about their communities, about the health of their families.

And you mentioned we do, we have a very ambitious climate law in the state, and we're working very rigorously towards those goals.

And this will be, you know, it's a very important step to help achieve that.

- Now, Liz, if I'm somebody that's looking at energy in the state, there is a part of the state where people would really like to see natural gas extraction.

It's something that we've talked about in New York before, is this money part of that at all?

In terms of alternative energy, some people like to point to natural gas and nuclear as an alternative to gasoline and diesel is something that may be cleaner, and, you know, some ways, yes, some ways, no.

Is the Bond Act part of that at all?

- So the Bond Act like Kate was saying is going to be a great mechanism to create jobs within New York State.

There are so many green energy and environmental jobs that are to be had.

And many of them are union jobs and high paying jobs.

So it's really important that we get people off of fossil fuels and towards this new green economy.

Water infrastructure's a great example.

There's not an area of the state where we don't have tremendous water infrastructure needs.

And we know that when we invest in water infrastructure, it creates hundreds of jobs.

So yeah, the Bond Act will be very helpful in that and starting us on this path towards a greener economy and greener jobs.

- And no nuclear as part of this, right?

I know that that's been a conversation with some people saying that that's a more friendly than natural gas, but obviously not so safe in some situations.

- No, this doesn't touch upon nuclear.

- Okay, and my last question for both of you is, you know, we have $4.2 billion.

The governor had proposed four and some lawmakers wanted five, maybe six.

I'll go to you first Kate, is $4.2 billion enough?

- I think it is great.

It is a great start.

Of course, we are advocating for the biggest Bond Act that would be authorized.

I think we're very happy with 4.2 and we've moved up a billion dollars.

I mean, Governor Hochul increased that.

And as you mentioned, the state legislature had different varying amounts, but I think it is a great number to work with.

We really look forward to educating voters this fall, or this summer for November 8th, which will be the election day for people to turn over their ballot and look for the referendum.

We don't know what number it will be on the back of the ballot yet, but to vote yes for this measure, it'll be tremendous for our state.

- And Liz, same question to you, and just a follow up question on that.

Do we know how it's gonna be phrased on the ballot?

Is that in the statute?

- Yes, so.

- And you don't have to repeat it because I didn't expect you to memorize it, but I was just wondering if like, if it's gonna be up to somebody to frame the question and whether the question is going to be framed in a way that might be appealing to voters or not appealing to voters.

I'm assuming it's designed to be appealing to voters.

- Yeah, it actually is in the statute.

And I believe it does frame the question in relation to climate change impacts and it's very pretty specific in like what it is intending to cover.

- But regarding the funding, you know, I completely agree with Kate.

We wanted to see as big a Bond Act as possible, but $4.2 billion, fantastic start, makes total sense to support this.

Has so many things the public likes, but I'll just have to note, you know, the legislature and the governor can't stop here.

We do have a climate crisis, we're gonna have to fight.

And it's very important that this Bond Act is just the start and that the state prioritizes funding to address the climate crisis and protecting public health in the environment.

- All right, a lot of great information.

We'll see what happens on November 8th is election day.

- Absolutely.

- Liz Moran from Earthjustice, Kate Kurera from Environmental Advocates New York.

Thank you both so much.

- [Liz And Kate] Thank you.

(upbeat music) - And there's not necessarily opposition to the Bond Act itself, but there have been different opinions on how it should be funded.

Some think that New York should have oil and gas companies chip in, but that's not part of the current plan.

So keep all that in mind when you head to the polls in November.

But switching gears now to a very different topic.

New York has a lot on the books from more than a century ago that was written to protect workers when they fall from tall heights.

Now, I know that might not sound exciting, but it's actually kind of a big deal, but in the century or so, since it was passed, it's been interpreted in ways that some have said led to abuse of the law.

And that's led to calls for reform.

For more on that, I spoke with Tom Stebbins, executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance.

(upbeat music) Tom, thank you so much for being here.

- Great to be with you.

- So we're talking Scaffold Law reform, which is something kind of wonky that a lot of New Yorkers don't know about.

So the Scaffold Law, well, let's start there, I'll have you explain it.

- [Tom] Sure.

- What is the Scaffold Law as it is?

- Yeah, well, first thing first, it has nothing necessarily to do with scaffolds.

What it is, is a liability law.

And it essentially says that if somebody gets injured on the job, it's the fault of the contractor and the property owner under almost any circumstances.

And the that's really problematic because our justice system is designed to find fault, right?

It's designed to assign responsibility, but in New York, if just for construction, responsibility resides a hundred percent with the property owner and the contractor, and this is above and beyond worker's comp.

So we essentially assume wrongly that in any case that a contractor was negligent or property owner was negligent.

And so they collect both workers comp and then a claim on top of that.

- And where did this come from?

I know the law is from 1885, I believe, from that range.

- Yeah, 1885 before we had workers comp, right?

And back then the law made sense.

And when workers comp started to expand across the country, most states got rid of their absolute liability law and replaced it with workers compensation, every state except New York.

The last other state to have a law like the Scaffold Law was Illinois.

They called it the Structural Work Act and hey got rid of it in 1999.

- I was just.

- Or 1996.

- Oh, there you go.

So at what point did it change from, it makes sense in 1885 to, this is something that, and well, let's first break down absolute liability, what that means for people, because they might not understand.

So, can you explain what that is?

To me, absolute liability means almost literally whatever happens, this person is liable, like there are very few exceptions.

- Yeah, that's right, and I think one of the best examples that people understand the most is intoxication, right?

So you would think that if a worker was intoxicated and had three drinks at lunch and then fell down on the job, that that would be the responsibility of the worker.

It is not in the state of New York because the alcohol didn't cause the injury.

It only contributed to the injury.

- [Dan] I see.

- And because of that, the contractor and the property owner are absolutely liable.

And this is especially concerning now that we have legalized marijuana and you could see a situation where somebody was intoxicated on marijuana, injured themselves or others, and yet the property owner and the contractor are liable.

- So was the law changed over time to include that, or was that the reading of it in 1885 when it passed?

- Yeah, that was the reading of it since then and really what's happened lately or by lately, the last 30, 40 years is attorneys have found it, right?

They've realized they can go to court.

They don't essentially have to prove negligence.

They just have to prove that there was an injury, right?

Which is pretty easy to do and if you prove there was an injury you get to collect.

So that's why if anybody's ever watching any of other station other than WMHT, which they should, but if they are, they will see a lot of attorney ads for contractor injuries because they are incredibly profitable for lawyers.

And that's part of the reason that they've been propped up here in New York is that the trial lawyer lobby who Governor Cuomo once called the most powerful political force in Albany, they want this law, and they want this law because they can get a lot of money for not a lot of work and not having to prove negligence.

- Well, how often do we see this used?

Is it very frequent?

There are some laws that we talk about that aren't used very often, but as you and I both know, you being from the Lawsuit Reform Alliance, New York is a very litigious state.

- Yes.

- How often do we see this taken advantage of?

- Well, we are the most litigious state in the most litigious country in the world, and this drives the majority of our lawsuits.

So in one year that we reviewed, I believe it was 18 of the top 30 lawsuits were all Scaffold Law related.

So it is a massive source of litigation in our courts and a massive source of money for our attorneys.

And we have more attorneys per capita than any other state in the nation.

- Yes, we do.

(Tom laughs) We have so many attorneys here.

- You don't sound surprised to hear that.

- No, no, not at all.

I mean, New York City alone just has, it's basically filled with attorneys.

- That's right, right.

We have, again, we have more per capita than any other state.

- Right, so the Scaffold Law, I've read in the past some op-eds and articles about this in that it can drive up construction costs and delay construction in some areas, how does that work?

How does it drive up construction costs?

And is this an impediment to new construction like infrastructure improvements?

- Yes, yes, and yes.

It drives up new construction costs and it does that because of the liability that those companies have to pay out or the state, right?

Or the port authority or the MTA, all of those entities pay massively amounts more in liability or insurance, depending on how they're covered because of the Scaffold Law.

The School Construction Authority estimated one year that this cost them $240 million.

- [Dan] Wow.

- 240 millio%n in school construction costs.

That's an astronomical number.

And for that, one of the SCA people joked to me, they could bus all the kids to New Jersey and still save money, right?

So it brings up the cost of whether we're trying to redo LaGuardia, build new schools or critically for right now, affordable housing, right?

Which is why the Habitat for Humanity and the Association for Affordable Housing are all on board for reform, because this drives up the cost of affordable housing.

And by driving up the cost of affordable housing, it drives down the amount of affordable housing that we have available to us.

- Now, does this just apply to public construction or if I'm building a house and I hire a private crew, does this apply there too?

- No, it applies to anything over a single family home.

So the legislature in 1986 decided this is not liability that homeowners should necessarily carry, right?

And so they fixed it for homeowners, but what's good for the goose is good for the gander, we should fix this law for multifamily homes and for infrastructure projects, we should just fix this law.

It's an outdated anachronism that really needs to go away.

And importantly, it doesn't improve safety.

And when you think about the intoxicated example, you understand why, right?

If somebody can be intoxicated and never held responsible for their own safety, you might have more people intoxicated and people being less responsible for their own safety.

So there's been lots of data out there that's shown that this actually correlates with an increase in injuries.

And so, you know, the advocates for it, mostly the lawyers say, we need this law for safety.

Well, it's not improving safety at all.

And they often say once a year, oh my gosh, we have so many injuries.

Ergo, we need the Scaffold Law.

Well, if it was working, we wouldn't be lamenting all these injuries.

So they're really talking out to both sides of their mouth with it.

- So how would you like to see a change?

Do you wanna see a full repeal off the books?

I think it's Labor Law section 240, 241.

- Correct, yep.

- Do you wanna see that fully repealed or do you think it needs an amendment?

- Well, critically, we do not want to adjust the safety part of the law at all.

- [Dan] Right.

- It requires certain safety provisions.

We support all of them.

It's just the liability.

And interestingly, the liability isn't even written in the law, right?

It's how the courts have interpreted it over the years.

And so you could argue that the absolute liability portion of it was never part of the legislative intent.

And so we believe that that needs to be clarified.

It needs to be clarified that we have, what's called comparative negligence where we assign liability proportional to fault, how about that?

And that's really the amendment we're going for, but not to interfere with any of the safety provisions.

- So just to give people a behind the scenes look, you and I have talked about this several times, the Scaffold Law.

- [Tom] Yes.

- So where is this in the legislature now?

It seems like it's something that we've talked about for years, it doesn't seem to gain momentum.

I think you're correct about the trial attorneys playing a part in that.

So, where is this in the legislature?

Have there been inroads made?

- Yeah, it's a perennial issue and each year we talk about a different part of it, whether or it's schools, whether it's affordable housing, whether it's critically MWBEs who cannot get insurance, because no insurers want to actually write coverage in our state.

And yet it continues to stall on the legislature, frankly, because of the influence of money on our legislature and the trial lawyers have a lot of money, they put it into the pockets of many of our politicians and the law stays the status quo.

- Is there any way for that to change, do you think?

Is there any way to convince lawmakers to go against the trial attorneys and maybe side with somebody else?

And are the unions involved in this too?

'Cause unions obviously, have a lot of political power in Albany.

- Yeah, so the unions are involved and they've supported this law for a long time.

Frankly, I think it's against their interest because of the rate that it causes injuries and because of the amount that it drives down union jobs, right?

And if you raise the cost for contractors on the insurance, they may be more likely to move away from union jobs and go to non-union.

So, we hope that the unions could come around on this.

We believe they should.

It's long overdue.

We need to put our state in line with the rest of the states, with the way the federal government does it, and if we do, we'll have more affordable housing, more MWBEs, more school construction, better infrastructure, whatever your issue is as a politician, as a citizen, it's likely that Scaffold Law will save some money for your issue.

- It's a really interesting issue, and I know that it doesn't apply to everybody and it's not everybody's situation, but when we talk about Scaffold Law, there are so many different parts to it.

Like from the money, from the safety to the lobbying and all these different things that we've talked about today.

So it's something that we have to keep an eye on, I think, you know, it's one of these issues that's never going to get enough attention unless some more attention is paid to it by people like me, people like you.

- Right, and it has gotten attention.

I mean, we've had the majority of county legislatures passed resolutions saying they support it, right?

But critically county legislatures don't get money from lobbyists.

(laughing) - Right, exactly, that's the thing.

All right well, we will leave it there.

Tom Stebbins from the Lawsuit Reform Alliance.

Thank you so much for talking through this.

I appreciate it.

- Great to be here and in person.

(upbeat music) - Now, there's been no real momentum on the Scaffold Law in the last few years, but it's something we're always watching.

In the meantime, don't forget to visit our website every day for updates from the state capital.

As always that's at nynow.org.

Thanks for watching this week's New York NOW, have a great week and be well.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for New York NOW is provided by WNET.