The recent scourge of fires caused by recharging e-bike batteries has many in New York City clamoring for more regulation of the devices. Instead, however, the New York City Council made headlines for its recent proposal to regulate coal- and wood-fired ovens at city pizza joints. City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R- 51st) appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to say the council should regulate the bikes a little more and the pizza joints a little less.
“The truth is, if they’re stored properly, and you don’t have someone trying to do homemade repairs on it in the apartment below you, they’re likely not going to explode randomly,” Borelli told Berman and Riedel. “We do already regulate who can repair them, and we should regulate… the type of batteries… it’s these cheap Chinese lithium-ion batteries that cause almost entirely all the problems.”
Borelli feels the bigger issue with e-bikes, however, is how they’re being ridden. “We’re talking about the bikes that are going 35, 40 miles an hour. There really needs to be a crackdown on that and a crackdown on people not obeying the rules when they’re operating those bikes. It’s insane. You feel like you’re taking your life in your hands every time you step on one of those green pieces of pavement.”
As for the pizza joints, Borelli is fired up for less regulation. “There is almost meaningless- meaningless- reduction of any sort of pollution from eliminating pizzerias, you know, the two or three dozen pizzerias that use wood or coal in New York City.…There will be no meaningful impact on global warming whatsoever, and yet this is what the DEP and progressive leftists are focused on.”
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