Res 0769-2023

Whereas, President Biden and the United States Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which provides $50 billion for water and wastewater projects; and Whereas, In New York State (NYS), most of the funds provided by the BIL are controlled by NYS's Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC); and Whereas, The EFC's established guidelines were carefully crafted to prevent New York City (NYC) from equitably receiving needed capital; and Whereas, The EFC instituted hardship rules to allow for all municipalities across the state to benefit, but with the notion, that only municipalities under 300,000 can receive the vast majority of BIL funding, in the form of grants from the EFC, pursuant to these hardship rules; and Whereas, NYS and the EFC have attempted to ensure equity across the state by having the funds distributed across all municipalities in New York regardless of population; and Whereas, NYC is the only municipality in NYS with over 300,000 people; and Whereas, By not taking population into effect when developing these rules, the EFC only created inequality by depriving New York City, the most populous municipality in the State of New York, of its fair share of funds; and Whereas, The BIL did not impose these guidelines, and this is solely a decision by the EFC; and Whereas, NYC, as a result of these unjust funding guidelines, only received two percent of NYS's water infrastructure grant funds in 2022, and NYC can only receive six percent of NYS's water and wastewater project funds from the BIL funds for 2023 according to U.S. Representatives Nicole Malliotakis, Grace Meng, and Nydia Vel�zquez; and Whereas, The State of New York also passed the Clean Water Infrastructure Act, which limited funding from the law at $5 million per municipality, thus, NYC can only receive up to 10 percent of these state funds under the law; and Whereas, These inequitable policies promulgated by the State of New York disproportionally impact minority and low-income communities; and Whereas, The majority of NYC is of non-white background, and NYC holds the largest minority population in NYS; and Whereas, NYC has 59 percent of the state's disadvantaged communities, which are at heightened risk of negatively being impacted by climate change compared to other municipalities according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority; and Whereas, A proper equitable distribution of water infrastructure funds would go toward disadvantaged communities, instead; and Whereas, Millions of NYC residents are at risk of climate change, and critical water infrastructure upgrades are needed to improve the life of the over 8 million who live in NYC; and Whereas, NYS should end its discriminatory environmental and water infrastructure policies punishing NYC and its residents; now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York calls upon the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation to remove restrictive barriers and uncap funds New York City can receive for water infrastructure upgrades LS #14021 JEB 8/1/23