Steve Cohens Blog

This summer I wrote about the need for increased public subsidies for mass transit and about the importance of keeping transit fares as low as possible. Due to over borrowing for capital improvements during the Pataki administration and the reduction in revenues from the City's real-estate transfer tax, estimates of the size of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's budget deficit continue to grow. The most recent estimate is for $1.2 billion in red ink next year. The MTA has proposed a "doomsday budget" of massive fare increases and widespread service reductions. They are hoping that the prospect of higher prices for less service will somehow scare the courageous and forward-looking leaders in Albany into action.  read more »

The winds of change are certainly blowing out of the District of Columbia these days. While the big news is our newly elected president, we also see that Henry Waxman was able to defeat John Dingell and take over as the chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. It has been from this perch that Congressman Dingell has protected the auto industry from the forces of modernity and sustainability for more than a quarter of a century. While Dingell’s defeat is good news for the environment, let’s hope it doesn’t signal the end of the auto industry. The guys running the Big 3 American auto companies are certainly not helping their own cause.  read more »

On November 19 Columbia University and the Manhattan Borough President's Office held a conference on The Politics of Food. The half-day conference was devoted to one of New York City's biggest challenges: ensuring that the public has ready access to high-quality food. Speakers included Columbia President Lee Bollinger, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and H.E. Father Miquel d'Escoto Brockmann, President of the United Nations General Assembly.

At the conference, Mayor Bloomberg linked the food issue to what he considers to be his administration's most important achievement - increased life expectancy for the people who live here. That figure is now greater than the average longevity of the U.  read more »

The economic meltdown that began on Wall Street has spread to the rest of the nation and most of the world. Economic decline shapes the mindset of many American consumers as they start to hold their cash in the bank or hide it under their mattresses. On November 11, New York Times reporter David Leonhardt wrote an incisive piece on this issue:

"For decades - from the 1950s through the 1980s - Americans spent about 91 percent of their income, on average, and put away the rest. In the last few years, they have spent close to 99 percent and saved only about 1 percent.  read more »

With the city's tax revenues melting down along with our local economy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and people in and around government are floating a number of large and small tax proposals. The idea of tolls on the East River bridges and even the recently defeated proposal to institute congestion pricing are once again getting serious attention as the MTA faces the need to make up revenue shortfalls. About half a million vehicles cross to and from Manhattan on those bridges each work day, and depending on the amount charged, a toll could generate up to $1 billion a year. It would also have the impact of reducing pollution, traffic and congestion in Lower Manhattan.  read more »

Tuesday morning the pageant of democracy began in earnest.  At 6:15am on West 120th street off Morningside Drive, I stood with my neighbors in the longest polling line I have seen in more than two decades of voting on the Upper West Side. Reading about the death of Barak Obama’s grandmother as I waited in line, I thought of my own grandparents, long gone, and the journey that took all four from Russia and Poland to Ellis Island and the shadow of the Statue of Liberty nearly a century ago.  America is a great country because it is, as John Kennedy once termed it, “a nation of immigrants”.  read more »

Last week, another element of Mayor Bloomberg's plan for sustainable transportation was dealt a significant, but by no means fatal setback. A federal judge blocked implementation of the requirement that all of the City's cabs be powered by hybrid engines. According to The New York Times' Sewell Chan: "In his ruling, Judge Crotty, who was the city's corporation counsel from 1994 to 1997, under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, agreed to block the city from enforcing the rule because the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their key legal argument - that the new regulations were pre-empted under federal law, which reserve regulation of fuel economy and emissions standards to federal agencies.  read more »

It has now been almost a half century since the idea of a global and interconnected biosphere was popularized by environmental pioneers such as Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner. It's been about four decades since astronauts broadcast the first images of our small, fragile bright blue planet from outer space. Until then, the idea of an interdependent planet was an abstraction. Those photos made the idea of our connectivity quite real.

Today, the issue of global sustainability has moved front and center in our political process, and it is reflected in the way we think about economic development, poverty eradication and even in the way we live.  read more »

If you read the transcript of the now famous exchange between Senator Obama and Joe the Plumber, you learn that Obama was making the point that rich people like him and those that make more than $250,000 a year should pay more taxes so that people who make less can pay fewer taxes – and so we can invest in our future. Now we learn from Senator McCain and the Fox News Channel that this is a fundamental principle of communism. I don’t think so. Let’s try to remember folks: In a communist system no one is supposed to make $250,000. It turns out that Joe is probably not about to make $250,000, has missed a few tax payments and may not even be a plumber.  read more »

During the recent presidential debates Senator John McCain said developing green technologies and alternative energies can "get our economy going by creating millions of jobs." On this point Senator Barak Obama agreed: "If we create a new energy economy, we can create 5 million jobs, easily, here in the United States." 

Despite the enthusiasm of the presidential candidates, in recent days we've seen lots of old-style thinking that the financial crisis would require steming efforts to build a green economy. The concern is that a recession is the wrong time to increase the costs of energy by regulating or taxing carbon dioxide emissions.  read more »