A Great New Reason to Bleed the Trumps Dry

By Paul Blest | May 13, 2019 | 2:24pm

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A new Guardian report published on Monday found that new New York City environmental regulations are set to begin costing the Trump Organization millions of dollars in fines unless they renovate their buildings.

The Guardian wrote that eight Trump-owned properties in the city—including Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and the Trump Building on Wall Street—aren’t in accordance with the city’s new plan, approved last month, to force buildings over 25,000 square feet to cut greenhouse gas emissions nearly in half by 2030. According to a 2017 report by the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio, these huge buildings account for two-thirds of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions.

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As a result, the Guardian found, the Trump Organization is set to be hit with fines of more than $2 million per year by 2030, unless the buildings are renovated. Its largest property in the city, the Trump International Hotel and Tower, would be fined over $850,000 per year if no changes are made.

City officials aren’t shying away from the damage this would specifically do to Trump, either. “President Trump, you’re on notice,” de Blasio, who is considering a failed run for president, told the Guardian. “Your polluting buildings are part of the problem. Cut your emissions or pay the price.”

New York’s new regulations are some of the strongest that any city in the world has put into place, and for good reason: we’re staring down the face of a climate catastrophe right now, the seriousness of which only a few policymakers in Washington seem to grasp. And it’s not just an added bonus that it’s set to redistribute wealth from the obscenely wealthy Trump family and their ilk back into the public coffers; the more money these people have, the more damage they can do to the environment and buy influence to get away with it.

If history has shown us anything about Donald Trump, however, it’s that he has a visceral hatred of regulations. In the 1990s, Trump lobbied against legislation requiring the installation of sprinklers in residential buildings in the city; last year, a fire on the 50th floor of Trump Tower (which was grandfathered into the legislation, and doesn’t have sprinklers) killed one resident and injured six firefighters. And as president, he’s launched an unparalleled war on the country’s regulatory scheme. In other words, don’t be surprised if we see some tweets about this at some point.