While New York City’s controversial environmental regulation targeting all of the city’s kosher matzah bakeries went into effect last April 27, and was promptly forgotten by most, New York State Senator Bill Weber has been doing his utmost to prevent the cost of the new regulation from hitting kosher consumers during the 2025 Passover holiday season.
The new regulation from New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) requires coal and wood-fired eateries, including matzah bakeries, to install an emission control system at great expense to cut their smoke pollutants by 75% to be able to bake matzah for the 2025 Passover season.
With inflation hitting a cumulative 20% under Biden, by the time kosher consumers will be obligated to make their matzah purchases for the Passover holiday, Senator Weber realized it would be too late to put a brake on the astronomical cost the DEP will have saddled the Orthodox Jewish community with. The Senator, therefore, co-sponsored Bill S8974 with Senator Jessica Scarcella–Spanton. The bill is meant to ensure emission control systems will not be required from food prep establishments, so the tremendous cost will not be passed on to the consumers.
“New Yorkers are already suffering enough from the 20% cumulative inflation Biden thrust on all of us,” Senator Weber says. “The DEP’s new regulations targeting wood and coal-fired stoves should never have been applied to businesses cooking food. The DEP’s overbearing overextension of that law will not only push consumers to do business outside of New York City, but it will also push businesses to vacate the city to lower costs to keep their consumers.
“The DEP’s claim that wood burning or coal stoves are the largest contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality makes no sense when it comes to New York City brick-oven pizza shops and not when it comes to New York City matzah bakeries that provide the handmade religiously obligated matzah for eight days out of the year.”