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Maria Bengtson's avatar

Re. the New York landlords, I’ve long been of the opinion that landlords should be responsible for utility costs (electric, gas, water) for exactly this reason. They are the ones making repair/replace (and with what?) decisions for the property, but the cost of these choices is often externalized to the tenants.

When the tenant pays for electric, when a unit’s fridge dies, the fridge from the 1970s the landlord has in the back of a storage unit looks like a good solution. If the landlord is paying the electric bill, a new energy-star model (at ~$20/month to run, vs ~$80 to 100/month for the old fridge) becomes a better option quickly.

Likewise, when the tenant pays the gas bill, the smallest repair that will get the wildly-inefficient 1940’s boiler running again is the economical choice. If the landlord pays that bill, the whole system is getting ripped out ASAP and replaced with the highest efficiency system they can possibly buy. (This is not hypothetical, it is my personal experience with two upper-Midwest landlords--guess which one was heat-included with the rent?)

I also think this is a reasonable sell for a landlord because they can use it as (reasonable) justification to increase rent, and it stabilizes monthly costs for tenants. If they try something like a one-time rent hike with guidelines based on square footage of each rental unit, and the average, median-efficiency utility bill for that amount of space, then it becomes a profitable endeavor to get the absolute most efficient systems that they possibly can. And let’s be real, that is the whole point of being a landlord.

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Pam T's avatar

My letter to Gavin, sent through https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/

Soon SB 253, the Climate Corporate Accountability Act, will be on your desk for a signature. I strongly urge you to sign it.

This legislation could have an outsized impact on our future. Continued investment in carbon polluting needs to stop as soon as possible. By requiring companies to disclose all the ways they are contributing to carbon emissions, pressure will build to truly decarbonize quickly, which is exactly what we need. Signing this single measure could change our future more than most bills. Please don't bow to the dark forces that want to keep their continued emissions in the dark. Please sign it right away.

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