Mayor de Blasio on Wednesday announced a ridiculous assault on the fossil-fuel industry that powers our city and whose earnings support retired city workers.
Taking a cue from fellow leftist officials in California, the de Blasio administration filed a federal lawsuit seeking to recoup billions from the top five oil companies (BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell) for their supposed role in the climate change that allegedly led to Hurricane Sandy and its devastating impact on the city.
The suit specifically seeks to recoup the costs of building the city’s resiliency in areas most likely to flood when superstorms hit. Hmm: That’s going to be a hard sell when de Blasio is encouraging more residential development all along the city’s waterfront.
Incidentally, Exxon has been answering similar suits in California by flagging those officials’ failure to disclose the climate change threat in their bond offerings.
Is the mayor ready to pay a premium on city borrowing as part of this stunt?
Plus, why should the oil companies pay? They’re not actually burning the fuel — that’s the world’s utilities, motorists, etc.
Without a practical non-fossil-fuel alternative, putting more carbon in the air is on all of us, not just the folks who provide the carbon. (Is the mayor willing to support nuclear plants, the only viable alternative?)
The mayor also joined Comptroller Scott Stringer to set a goal of divesting the city’s five pension funds of $5 billion worth of fossil-fuel holdings. But those stocks are a growing part of the US economy, thanks to the fracking revolution. It’s going to be hard to divest while still meeting the plans’ fiduciary obligations — which de Blasio and Stringer say they’ll respect.
Then, too, it would be nice to see the mayor practicing what he preaches. Will he ever stop taking his caravan of gas-guzzling SUVs to his Park Slope gym? How about canceling his flights around the country in support of his progressive agenda? (Save the planet, sir: Teleconference in!)
Sadly, we don’t expect him to change his ways — except for the worse. The city is facing four more years of this nonsense.