Testimony of Rich Mantell, UFT Vice President, submitted before the New York City Council Environmental Protection, Resiliency & Waterfronts Committee

My name is Rich Mantell, and I’m the vice president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and one of the coordinators of the Carbon Free and Healthy Schools campaign. On behalf of the union’s more than 190,000 members, I would like to thank Chair Jim Gennaro and all the members of the City Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, Resiliency and Waterfronts for holding today’s public hearing. We are thrilled to be here in support of Int. 353, sponsored by Council Member Nurse, Chair Gennaro, and Council Member De La Rosa, speaking about the installation of solar photovoltaic systems on city-owned property that will prioritize schools and other city-owned property in disadvantaged areas and bar the use of power purchase agreements (PPAs). 

The UFT continues to work with the coalition of New York City unions, including 32BJ SEIU, DC37, CSA and the Building and Construction Trades Council, that together spearhead the Carbon Free and Healthy Schools campaign, as well as with local, state and federal lawmakers to push for New York City to create modern, healthy, zero-emissions and sustainable green schools. We can simultaneously improve working and learning conditions for educators and students alike, increase wages, create good union jobs and pathways for students to good union jobs and create hubs of energy and community resilience. We also work to create zero-emissions transportation and safe routes to schools and to institute the teaching of climate change, sustainability and environmental justice across the curriculum. We can prioritize disadvantaged, poor, low-income, frontline communities, communities of color and schools otherwise suffering the most cumulative and negative environmental and public health impacts by using funding already allocated for this work and pushing for much more. The Biden administration's $2 trillion infrastructure plan is one of the most ambitious federal efforts ever to tackle climate change, and we cannot forego the opportunity to use these federal funds to make all 1,750 city school buildings clean and green. 

It is time to invest in the infrastructure of our city’s schools. Public schools are among the worst climate polluters and largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the city. Most of our school buildings need basic repairs and upgrades to address issues ranging from antiquated heating and air-conditioning systems to deteriorating rooftops to outdated electrical grids. At least a quarter of New York City classrooms lack air conditioning entirely. At the same time, HVAC systems are contributing to extremely hot temperatures in school kitchens and creating unworkable and hazardous conditions for staff. By investing in school infrastructure, we can create tens of thousands of good union jobs while making schools healthier and safer, taking on climate change, and saving $8.25 billion — $600 million from this legislation alone — in energy expenditures over 30 years that can be reinvested in schools. We want to prioritize historically under-resourced communities of color, where students face the most acute educational and environmental challenges. Conducting deep retrofits and installing solar power and battery storage to meet the energy needs of all city public schools will create 45,000 union jobs — 1,500 from Int. 353 — including high-quality career pathways for women, justice-involved individuals, and members of frontline communities. With energy-efficient retrofits and renewable power that cut energy consumption by 50%, we can save more than 100,000 tons of carbon emissions every year — the equivalent of planting 400,000 trees or taking 20,000 cars off the road and a critical step to reaching the city’s goal of an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. 

Building net-zero carbon schools creates healthy learning and working environments for our students and teachers. P.S. 62, the Kathleen Grimm School for Leadership and Sustainability at Sandy Ground, the first net-zero energy school in New York City and one of the first in the nation, stands as a model for the kind of innovation and jobs that can be created by clean energy. The Kathleen Grimm School was union-built and has nearly 2,000 solar panels that generate enough electricity to power the school year-round. The school’s architecture was designed to generate as much energy as it uses, including a green roof, underground geothermal well, rainwater retention tanks, greenhouse garden and other clean energy features. 

Part of realizing the just transition and job-creation effects of this campaign is the proposed ban on the use of power purchase agreements, whereby a private-sector company owns the energy system installed on our public assets and is responsible for installation, operations and maintenance. Seventy-nine percent of projects that are currently in progress are being financed through PPAs, despite those agreements posing a myriad of equity, economic-development and workforce-development issues. Solar energy in public buildings financed through PPAs are not subject to project labor agreements (PLAs) and instead follow labor practices that are below high-quality job standards. PPAs do not maximize the potential savings from solar. Rather, they shift most of the cost savings that come from solar energy to private solar developers, thereby reducing the city’s ability to reinvest in communities hit hardest by climate change. Rejecting PPAs for solar installation will ensure the city has more savings to be returned to public funds and low-income communities. Only by focusing on how we implement climate initiatives can we make progress on economic equity and focus resources on frontline and environmental justice communities. 

To close, I want to share just a few of the tenets of our campaign that Mayor Adams affirmed as a candidate for office: 

• Schools should be healthy and safe for students, staff and the community. 
• Schools should be a model for carbon-free buildings with optimal energy efficiencies. 
• Schools most in need of investment should be prioritized, including those with the most antiquated heating and cooling systems — particularly in Black and brown communities that have been historically underserved and poorly maintained. 
• Schools should utilize rooftops to generate their own solar power.
• Schools should reinvest the cost savings from their own solar power into ongoing maintenance of the buildings and classroom instruction. 
• Retrofitting schools for energy efficiency and solar power must create good union jobs for New York City communities. 
• New York City should lead the way to create Carbon Free and Healthy Schools and green infrastructure to tackle the climate crisis. 

This is a moment when we can go big — enlisting federal support and building on earlier work to put solar on some New York City schools — and implement energy-efficiency retrofits and solar power across our school buildings. Together, we can make New York City schools a model of green infrastructure, make schools healthier and safer for students and the school community, create good union jobs and save schools millions in energy costs.