More than half of CUNY’s buildings are 50 years old or older. That’s a problem for the environment: older buildings tend to consume larger quantities of energy, generating more of the greenhouse gasses that lead to climate change. 

What do the decaying buildings at the City University of New York (CUNY) have to do with climate change? A lot.

More than half of CUNY’s buildings are 50 years old or older. That’s a problem for the environment: older buildings tend to consume larger quantities of energy, generating more of the greenhouse gasses that lead to climate change.

Meanwhile, the administration is racing to meet an ambitious climate mandate that requires city-owned buildings to reduce their carbon emissions 50 percent by 2030. And as the city has over 300 CUNY buildings across 29 million square feet under its care, environmentalists say the decarbonization of this massive footprint must take precedence.

“CUNY is arguably the single biggest piece of the puzzle that New York City has to address in order to reach its climate goals. But it hasn’t really yet gotten the attention that it needs,” said Eli Dvorkin, a researcher at the Center for an Urban Future who co-authored a report on the state of CUNY’s facilities.

Tackling CUNY’s carbon footprint, Dvorkin says, will solve two big problems plaguing the public university: climate change and the need to revive its aging campuses. 

By renovating buildings to make them more energy efficient and resilient, the administration can simultaneously tackle a mounting repairs backlog. Only about 8 percent of CUNY buildings are in a state of good repair, according to the university. 

While the CUNY’s sustainability program is making progress on these fronts, advocates say it will fail to reach its climate goals without more resources. “A big part of the challenge is that the city and state have chronically underfunded CUNY capital needs for decades,” Dvorkin said.

Since January 2022, CUNY faces a cumulative $95 million in recurring annual cuts under Mayor Eric Adams’ Programs to Eliminate the Gap (PEGs).

Over the past five years, CUNY has received $2.9 billion from the state and $500 million from the city to renovate and upgrade its facilities, Dvorkin’s report says. But CUNY’s capital plan says the university system will need $6.8 billion over the next five years to fully address its maintenance backlog and upgrade its aging properties. 

Tackling the billion dollar backlog

Some lawmakers are pushing to funnel more funds towards CUNY’s maintenance problems, and say that factoring in climate change is an important part of the equation.

“Any construction we do should be looked at through the lens of climate change and should be energy efficient,” said Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Higher Education and hosted a hearing last month on the state of CUNY’s facilities. 

In their budget response, Dinowitz and his colleagues are calling for over $333 million in capital funding from the Adams administration “to support CUNY in preserving the university system’s infrastructure, recapturing spaces that are under-utilized, improving technology, and meeting energy conservation goals.” 

At the April 17 hearing, students and faculty testified that the state of CUNY’s buildings have gotten worse. In some classrooms, the ceiling is falling apart and black mold has taken over. Jean Grassman, an associate professor at CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health & Health Policy, testified that heating pipes at Colston Hall in Bronx Community College froze in 2019 and flooded dozens of offices and classrooms, “forcing relocation for six weeks.”

CUNY estimates that it currently faces a $4.3 billion backlog in deferred maintenance costs across its 25 schools.

“The sorry state of its campus is doing a disservice to its largely low income student body,” said John Surico, a professor at CUNY who spoke at the hearing and co-authored the Center for an Urban Future’s report. 

“CUNY is one of the best public institutions for economic mobility that the city has. It’s this incredible engine to get folks into middle or upper class jobs,” he added. “So we have a unique opportunity here to not only fix these buildings and build a better future for CUNY students, but also really chip away at the city’s mission to lower its carbon emissions.”

The university has been hard at work on decarbonization with the existing resources it does have. Last year, CUNY outlined a roadmap in its five-year capital plan for how it intends to reach the carbon emissions targets stipulated by city-wide mandates, and reduce its energy consumption to meet state targets.  

Measures include upgrading LED lighting and optimizing other equipment across the system so it uses up less energy. CUNY has also been deploying submeters to collect data on the building energy performance to plan for upgrades when needed. 

Large-scale public solar projects were also established at both the Borough of Manhattan and Bronx Community Colleges (the latter of which is also getting upgraded boiler and chiller systems thanks to support from the New York Power Authority, or NYPA).

There is also more collaboration with NYPA on the horizon. The agency was authorized at the end of last year to develop “decarbonization action plans” for 15 of the state’s highest emitting facilities, which includes three CUNY campuses.

Between 2006 and 2023, CUNY as a whole has reduced its emissions by 11 percent, according to the university. 

But that progress is too slow, advocates and staff say. “We haven’t been able to implement the changes that are needed. And that’s partly an administrative problem. We just haven’t had enough administrative infrastructure to do it,” said Nancy Romer, climate director at the union Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY). 

While Romer says the Sustainable CUNY team, which oversees environmental efforts, is doing the best it can with the little resources it has, she claims bureaucratic hurdles, low salaries and short staff make it hard to accomplish more.

“CUNY is proud of its work to reduce our carbon footprint, creating greener buildings and campuses. Like any large public institution, we face challenges upgrading our buildings but are committed to continuing to address climate change,” a CUNY spokesperson said in an email. 

Significantly reducing CUNY’s carbon footprint will ultimately come down to political willpower and commitment from City Hall, environmentalists say.

“There’s a lot of talk of decarbonisation, a lot of talk of meeting climate mandates, but their investments need to match that talk,” said Jennille Scott, climate director at the Alliance for a Greater New York (ALIGN). “They need to match the depth of the climate crisis and the impacts that are being felt across CUNY campuses.”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Mariana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Pete McCloskey — a pro-environment, anti-war California Republican who co-wrote the Endangered Species Act and co-founded Earth Day — has died. He was 96.

A fourth-generation Republican “in the mold of Teddy Roosevelt,” he often said, McCloskey represented the 12th Congressional District for 15 years, running for president against an incumbent Richard Nixon in 1972. He battled party leaders while serving seven terms in Congress and went on to publicly disavow the GOP in his later years.

He died at home Wednesday, according to Lee Houskeeper, a family friend.

Years after leaving Washington, McCloskey made one last bid for elective office in 2006 when he challenged Richard Pombo of Northern California’s 11th District in a primary race that McCloskey described as “a battle for the soul of the Republican Party.” After losing to Pombo, who had spent most of his tenure in Washington attempting to undo the Endangered Species Act, he threw his support behind Democrat Jerry McNerney, the eventual winner.

“It was foolish to run against him (Pombo), but we didn’t have anybody else to do it, and I could not stand what a—— they’d become,” the frank-talking former Marine colonel said of the modern GOP in a 2008 interview with The Associated Press.

McCloskey cited disillusionment from influence peddling and ethics scandals under the George W. Bush administration as reasons why he switched parties in 2007 at the age of 79. “A pox on them and their values,” he wrote in an open letter explaining the switch to his supporters.

“McCloskey was a rarity in American politics — his actions were guided by his sense of justice, not by political ideology,” Joe Cotchett, his law partner since 2004, said in a statement. “He hated inequity and did not hesitate to take on members of his own political party.”

Born in Loma Linda, California, on Sept. 29, 1927, as Paul Norton McCloskey Jr., he graduated from South Pasadena High School, where the second baseman made the school’s baseball hall of fame, although he self-deprecatingly called himself “perhaps the worst player on the baseball team.”

McCloskey joined the Marine Corps as an officer and led a rifle platoon during some of the most intense fighting of the Korean War. He was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism, the nation’s second-highest honor, a Silver Star for bravery in combat and two Purple Hearts.

He earned a law degree from Stanford University and founded an environmental law firm in Palo Alto before making the move to public office. In 1967, he defeated fellow Republican Shirley Temple Black and Democrat Roy Archibald in a special election for the San Mateo County congressional seat.

The left-leaning McCloskey had a thundering presence in Washington, attempting to get onto the floor of the 1972 Republican National Convention during his bid to unseat then-President Nixon on an anti-Vietnam War platform. He ultimately was blocked by a rule written by his friend and law school debate partner, John Ehrlichman, that said a candidate could not get to the floor with fewer than 25 delegates. McCloskey had one.

Still, McCloskey loved to say he finished second.

He would later visit Ehrlichman in prison, where Nixon’s former counsel served 1.5 years for conspiracy, perjury and obstruction of justice in the Watergate break-in that led to the president’s resignation.

While in office, McCloskey also was known for befriending Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and criticized Israeli influence on American politics. The congressman was the first to demand Nixon’s impeachment, and the first to demand a repeal of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that allowed the Vietnam War.

But his enduring legacy is the Endangered Species Act, which protects species designated as endangered or threatened and conserves the ecosystems on which they depend. McCloskey co-wrote the legislation in 1973, after a campaign by young people empowered by Earth Day activities successfully unseated seven of 12 Congress members known as “The Dirty Dozen” for their anti-environment votes.

“On that day, the world changed,” McCloskey recalled in 2008. “Suddenly, everybody was an environmentalist. My Republican colleagues started asking me for copies of old speeches I had given on water and air quality.”

“A powerful champion of endangered species, Pete, ironically, became one,” said Denis Hayes, co-organizer of the Earth Day, about the rarity of a “green, anti-war Republican.”

After 15 years in the House, he lost his run for a Senate seat to Republican Pete Wilson, who went on to be California’s governor. He moved back to rural Yolo County, relishing the life of a farmer and part-time attorney.

“You know, if people call you ‘congressman’ all the time, you’ll end up thinking you’re smarter than you are,” he said.

McCloskey, however, couldn’t stay quiet forever.

In 2006, after his unsuccessful race against Pombo, he helped form the Revolt of the Elders Coalition, a group of retired Republican congressmen who pushed to get soldiers more money for college, undo measures that made it tougher to investigate ethics violations and rallied against those who had received funding from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, including Pombo.

“If you can do something at age 80 that positively affects our country, you should be proud of it. Otherwise there’s no redeeming value in getting older,” he said.

McCloskey is survived by his wife, Helen — his longtime press secretary whom he married in 1978 — and four children by his first wife: Nancy, Peter, John and Kathleen.

____

This story contains biographical information compiled by former AP writer Tracie Cone.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE (AP Technology Writer)

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday questioned whether Apple has set up a gauntlet of exasperating hurdles to discourage the use of alternative payment options in iPhone apps, despite a court order seeking to create more ways for consumers to pay for digital services.

The verbal sparring between Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers and the head of Apple’s app store kicked off a hearing focused on whether Apple is still steering U.S. consumers to its once-exclusive app payment system in defiance of an injunction aimed at promoting more choices that could help lower prices.

Gonzalez Rogers’ order requires Apple to allow app developers to display links to other options besides the company’s own payment system in the U.S. Apple makes billions of dollars annually from that setup, which imposes commission ranging from 15% to 30% on digital transactions completed within the most popular iPhone apps.

Apple’s app store and its commission system also is being targeted in another antitrust case recently filed by the U.S. Justice Department in a case alleging the iPhone walls off competition in a variety of ways that stifle competition and innovation.

Gonzalez Rogers often sounded frustrated and skeptical as she periodically chimed in during four hours of testimony from Matthew Fischer, the Apple executive in charge of the iPhone app store.

The tone of the judge’s questions indicated she is concerned Apple’s efforts to comply with her order have been primarily designed to protect the company’s profits instead of making it easier for iPhone users to switch to other in-app payment options, as she intended.

Gonzalez Rogers was particularly pointed as she grilled Fischer about whether Apple had deliberately made it more cumbersome and confusing for consumers to make digital purchases through alternative services.

“Other than to stifle competition, I can see no other answer,” the judge said as she tried to dissect the rationale for Apple’s design of alternative payment option system for iPhone apps.

Fischer maintained Apple is complying with the judge’s order while still trying to shield iPhone users from bad actors on the internet and enabling the Cupertino, California, company to reap a return on its investments in the app store and other mobile software.

Toward that end, Apple has introduced a new commission structure ranging from 12% to 27% on digital transactions initiated from within an app and completed on an alternative payment option. After Gonzalez Rogers said it sounded like Apple was still collecting a “windfall,” Fischer said the company expected its effective commission rate on digital transactions processed by alternative payment options to be about 18%.

“We are running a business,” Fischer said.

Apple spent more than two years trying to overturn the order that Gonzalez Rogers issued as part of a broader antitrust battle that the company won. The injunction requiring Apple to allow links to alternative app payments took effect in January after U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the case.

But Fischer disclosed Wednesday that Apple so far has only received and approved applications to display links to alternative payment systems from 38 apps so far — a fraction of the roughly 2 million iPhone apps available in the U.S. Fischer couldn’t specify how many of those apps engage in digital transactions when asked by Gonzalez Rogers, who ordered Apple to provide the number as the proceedings progress this month.

Video game Epic Games cites the muted interest in applying for in-app links to alternative payment options as evidence that Apple was still rigging the system in its favor.

Epic, maker of the popular Fortnite video game, is trying to force Apple to make more sweeping changes to accommodate alternative payment options after it unsuccessfully tried to persuade Gonzalez Rogers that the iPhone app store had turned into a price-gouging monopoly during a 2021 trial.

The effort is being supported by Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms, Elon Musk’s X short-messaging service, music streaming service Spotify and long-time Apple rival Microsoft.

Apple’s current alternative payment formula “is guaranteed to continue extracting excessive commissions from developers” while also blocking them from steering consumers to other places where they could buy the same digital services for lower prices, Epic asserted in documents leading up to Wednesday’s hearing.

In its own pre-hearing briefs, Apple accused Epic of trying to get Gonzalez Rogers to micromanage its business in ways designed to boost the video game maker’s profits.

“Epic has repeatedly made clear that what it wants is access to and use of Apple’s tools and technologies without having to pay for them,” Apple argued.

The court hearings are scheduled to resume Friday when another top Apple executive, Phil Schiller, is expected to testify. Gonzalez Rogers hopes to wrap up the hearings by May 17, but told lawyers Wednesday it might take longer than that.

By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stunned colleagues Wednesday calling for a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson, but lawmakers quickly rejected it.

Greene pressed ahead with her long-shot effort despite pushback from Republicans at the highest levels tired of the political chaos.

One of Donald Trump’s biggest supporters in Congress, Greene stood on the House floor and read a long list of “transgressions” she said Johnson had committed as speaker. Colleagues booed in protest.

It was the second time in a matter of months that Republicans have tried to oust their own speaker, an unheard-of level of party turmoil with a move rarely seen in U.S. history.

Greene of Georgia criticized Johnson’s leadership as “pathetic, weak and unacceptable.”

GOP lawmakers filtered towards Johnson, giving him pats on the back and grasping his shoulder to assure him of their support.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise quickly moved to table the effort — essentially stopping it from going forward. The motion to table was swiftly approved.

The Georgia Republican had vowed she would force a vote on the motion to vacate the Republican speaker if he dared to advance a foreign aid package with funds for Ukraine, which was overwhelmingly approved late last month and signed into law.

But in recent days it seemed her effort had cooled, as she and Johnson met repeatedly for a potential resolution.

Johnson of Louisiana marched on, saying he had been willing to take the risk, believing it was important for the U.S. to back Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and explaining he wanted to be on the “right side of history.”

“I just have to do my job every day,” Johnson said Monday.

In a highly unusual move, the speaker received a boost from Democrats led by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, whose leadership team had said it was time to “turn the page” on the GOP turmoil and vote to table Greene’s resolution — almost ensuring Johnson’s job is saved, for now.

Trump also weighed in after Johnson trekked to Mar-a-Lago for a visit, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee giving the speaker his nod of approval. And Trump’s hand-picked leader at the Republican National Committee urged House Republicans off the move.

The move now poses its own political risks for Greene, R-Ga., a high-profile provocateur.

Forcing the vote could bring the House chamber to a standstill, as happened last year when eight Republicans voted to ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s office, and Democrats declined to help save him.

Ousting McCarthy resulted in a nearly monthlong search for a new GOP leader, and there is no immediate successor if Johnson is removed.