Gennaro recounts clean-air history and idling complaint growth
Gennaro says city air quality has improved through Council action on heating oil, commercial cooking emissions, and the city fleet. He describes the phase-out of No. 6 and No. 4 oil and notes idling complaints rose from about 9,000 in 2019 to 163,000 in 2025.
And the city's air quality has improved over the last 20 years, thanks in no small part to the council.
Over that time, the council has passed legislation to phase out dirty heating oil, regulating emissions from certain commercial cooking equipment.
Making the city fleet electric and reducing emissions from certain types of buildings.
Each of these laws has demonstrated the council's commitment to making the air cleaner and safer for New Yorkers.
While the air quality has improved, there is still work to be done, work that this committee takes very seriously.
Let me just go off script for a second and talk about some of the things that have happened.
I remember in one fell swoop, the council working with the state eliminated
the dirtiest fuel oil, number six oil.
So six oil went out.
Number four oil, many of you people know what that is.
It's a blend of number two and number six.
That was reduced from a sulfur content.
between like 3,000 and 4,000 down to 1,000 or 1,500 or whatever it was.
So it made four cleaner.
And in conjunction with the state, we made number two ultra-low...
Yeah, we met at ultra-low sulfur, ULSD, and we did something.
Oh, and then we, there was some other component to that, but those measures taken together,
clean the city's air quality to the equivalent of taking every car, truck, and bus off the road forever.
You know, that was a good thing, but we have to keep going, and idling is a very big deal.
I just thought I'd give you that little piece of history.
Okay, back to script.