Our goal is simple: make Cow Gas affordable enough that it's a real choice for every home and building. From Bessie on the farm to her cousins in every city.
Whether you live in New York City or anywhere else in the world, here's what this is about.
In 2019, New York City passed Local Law 97 to cut pollution from its buildings. We're all for it.
But right now, buildings are being told there's only one way to follow the law: tear out what works and go all electric. That's not what the law says. It allows more than one way.
That's why we're here. Learn what the law really says, decide what's right for your building, and sign the petition. The rest of the world already knows:
We're fighting so that nobody makes a life-changing financial decision based on bad information.
Make RNG? New York wants your gas. Sign on as a producer
The State Is Investing in Clean Fuel
New York just made $27 million available
for clean fuel projects.
- Governor Hochul and NYSERDA, New York State's energy agency, put $27 million behind clean fuel, including renewable natural gas (what we call Cow Gas).
- ✅ New York State: $27 million for clean fuel projects
- ✅ New York City: on record supporting locally made clean gas
- ❌ Department of Buildings: still hasn't set the number
The City Says Yes to Cow Gas Delivery!
We're Making Progress,
but DOB Still Needs to Set the Number.
- The City told state regulators to allow local renewable natural gas "to the maximum extent possible."
- DOB still hasn't set the number. Help us make it a reality by joining your fellow New Yorkers and signing the petition.
Clean Fuel. Clean Air.
Affordable Homes.
New York's climate law can work today. Help us make it happen.
- Clean fuel can heat NYC homes today.
- No tearing out what already works.
- The City just needs to set the number.
Sign the petition
This is the official wording we'll hand to the Commissioner, the Mayor or the City Council. If you live in, manage or sit on the board of a building, your signature carries extra weight. Clean fuel producers and organizations can sign too.
Administrative Code section 28-320.3.1.1(7) requires that greenhouse gas emissions attributable to other energy sources "shall be determined by the commissioner and promulgated into rules of the department." That duty has not been carried out for low carbon gas, including biomethane and renewable natural gas from dairy and livestock farms, landfills, wastewater treatment plants, food waste and other organic sources, and synthetic methane made by converting CO2.
We, the undersigned owners, board members, managers and residents of buildings covered by Local Law 97, ask the Commissioner to determine and promulgate a greenhouse gas coefficient for low carbon gas without further delay, so that our buildings may comply with the law using the heating systems and pipelines we already own, and so that the cost of compliance is not shifted onto the New Yorkers who can least afford it.
Joined by producers and organizations ready to supply low carbon gas to New York City buildings.
Join the mooooovement!
All signers are kept strictly confidential. We will never publish, sell or share your name, email or building.
Producers and organizations ready to supply low carbon gas can sign too.
- Co-ops and condos
- Mitchell-Lama and affordable housing
- Rent-regulated and apartment buildings
- Commercial buildings and businesses
It's not just homes. It's jobs. Rip-and-replace means special assessments, higher rents and higher costs for the businesses that rent space in these buildings. One New York employer we work with has 120 jobs on the line if it's forced down that path. It's far from the only one. Setting the number costs the City nothing.
We're Moving Forward Together
In October, the court sided with us and restored Standard Carbon to the City's NYC Accelerator program. We've since withdrawn our lawsuit and we're moving on from the Accelerator to focus on building projects and delivering clean fuel. We thank the Accelerator team, and we want to help the Department of Buildings get this law right.
One step is still left: DOB needs to set the number for clean gas so buildings get credit for the cleaner fuel they burn. That's a conversation we're ready to have, and your signature shows the City how many New Yorkers want it done.
Review our correspondence with: NYC's DOB
"Transparency is our superpower."
Every letter, filing and email thread between Standard Carbon and DOB on Local Law 97 is here: our CCD1 request for a carbon coefficient for the Carbon Bridge at City College, our counsel's letters to DOB, the technical appeal, and the Good Faith Effort plans that rely on low carbon gas. Every page is text-searchable. Read it, download it, search it, share it. And if you'd like to talk, reach us anytime at info@standardcarbon.com.
- CCD1 pre-determination request for 152 Convent Avenue (CCNY), March 2026
- Our email exchanges with DOB on that request, through April 2026
- Letters from our counsel to DOB, April 24 and August 19, 2026
- CCD1 technical appeal, filed August 17, 2026
- Good Faith Effort plan correspondence, September 2026
106 pages. To protect third parties, we've blacked out client building addresses, BBL, BIN and ticket numbers, and personal email addresses and phone numbers. Nothing else has been changed.
Local Law 97 lets my building use clean fuel in the heating system we already have.
So who decided we have to tear it out?
The law gives you more than one way.
We support Local Law 97 as written. We're asking the City to use all of it. The law doesn't tell buildings what fuel to use. It sets a pollution limit for each building and lets the building decide how to meet it. To do the math, every kind of energy gets a carbon score, which we call the "number." The law lists numbers for electricity, gas, oil and steam, and tells the Buildings Commissioner to set the rest:
Notice the word shall. Not may. The City has already set a number for biofuels. It hasn't set one for clean gas made from farms, landfills, wastewater plants and food waste. That gas travels through the same lines that already heat your building. Here’s where it comes from. Cleaner fuel means less pollution and lower fines, with no tear-out, no new electrical work and no waiting on the power grid. All that's missing is the "number."
Your Home. Your Money. Your Choice.
Got Cow Gas? It’s not just cows.
“Cow Gas” is our nickname for renewable natural gas, or RNG. The cows get the credit, but it comes from a lot of places. Anywhere food scraps, manure or trash break down, they give off gas. Clean it up, and it’s the same natural gas that already heats your building.
Dairy and livestock farms
Manure goes into a sealed tank called a digester instead of being thrown out somewhere else. Your leftover food scraps can be collected and put into the same kind of tank. As they break down, they give off a gas that would normally escape into the air. Now, instead of polluting the air, that gas becomes fuel.
The original Cow Gas.
Landfills
Buried trash gives off gas for decades. Landfills collect it with pipes in the ground and clean it up.
America’s biggest source of RNG.
Wastewater treatment plants
What we flush goes to one of New York City’s 14 wastewater treatment plants. There, it breaks down in sealed tanks too, and the gas it gives off can become clean fuel. New York already does it in Brooklyn.
People Gas. It’s Cow Gas too.
Food waste and organics
Food scraps, grease and waste from food plants go into digesters too, often mixed with manure or sewage.
Yesterday’s leftovers.
Converted CO2
Every one of these plants removes CO2 from its gas, and most let it escape into the air. Turning that CO2 into more gas can nearly double what a plant makes. That’s what StandardRNG™ does.
More gas from the same waste.
Same molecule
It’s the same gas whether it came from a dairy upstate, a landfill in Pennsylvania or a treatment plant in Brooklyn. It all flows through the same system to the same buildings.
Same gas. Same system.
That’s why we’re asking the City to set a “number” for all clean gas, not just one kind. Every source on this list can heat New York buildings today.
Ask the people who decide
Three offices decide this: the Department of Buildings, the Mayor (who appoints its Commissioner) and the City Council committee that oversees it. Everyone else can help push them. Ask for the same thing everywhere, and if you can, share what your building stands to pay in fines.
NYC Department of Buildings, Commissioner Ahmed Tigani
The law makes setting the number the Commissioner's job. Start here.
Email the LL97 team: BEAM_LL97@buildings.nyc.gov
Email the Commissioner (web form)
Sustainability Help Center 212-566-5584. Customer service 212-393-2550.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani
Appoints and directs the Commissioner. Ran on affordability; this is an affordability issue.
Or call 311 and ask that your request be logged to the Mayor's office and DOB.
City Council Committee on Housing and Buildings
Oversees the Department of Buildings and can ask the Commissioner, on the record, why the number hasn't been set. Chair: Pierina Ana Sanchez. Speaker: Julie Menin.
Your City Council Member
Constituent volume is what a member notices. Every resident, every board.
311
Creates a logged, countable record inside the City's own system.
nyc.gov/311 or dial 311. Ask that it be logged as a service request to the Department of Buildings.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams
Takes constituent complaints about agencies and can press DOB publicly.
advocate.nyc.gov, 212-669-7250, gethelp@advocate.nyc.gov
Your Borough President
Housing advocates with a direct line to City Hall and the Council.
Bronx 718-590-3500. Brooklyn 718-802-3700. Manhattan 212-669-8300. Queens 718-286-3000. Staten Island 718-816-2000.
Your State Senator and Assembly Member
Albany funds Mitchell-Lama and state housing programs. State bill S7133A would set a renewable natural gas standard for utilities.
Your Member of Congress and U.S. Senators
Federal clean fuel and RNG policy shapes what the City can count. Let them know New York's buildings want the option.
Tell a reporter
Reporters need real people with real numbers. "Our 1,400-unit co-op faces $X in fines unless the City sets a number the law already requires" is a story.
Habitat Magazine 212-505-2030 · THE CITY tips page · Gothamist tips@gothamist.com · City & State tips@cityandstateny.com
What to say
Be polite, be specific, and keep it to one thing: the "number". Don't argue about the pollution limits. We support Local Law 97 as written; we're asking the City to use all of it. Copy, paste, and fill in the brackets.
Phone call (30 seconds)
Hi, my name is [name]. I live at [building] in your district, and my building is covered by Local Law 97. I'm calling to kindly ask the Council Member to request that our friends at the Department of Buildings set the carbon "number" for low carbon gas, as section 28-320.3.1.1(7) of the law directs them to. That lets buildings like mine meet the law with the heating system we already have, without special assessments or rent increases. Would you please pass that along and let me know how I can follow up? Thank you.
311 (creates a logged record)
Hi, I'd like to log a service request to the Department of Buildings. My building at [building] is covered by Local Law 97. Section 28-320.3.1.1(7) of the Administrative Code says the Buildings Commissioner shall determine the carbon coefficient for other energy sources. I'm requesting that DOB set the coefficient for low carbon gas. Please log my request and give me the reference number.
Subject: Local Law 97, section 28-320.3.1.1(7): please ask DOB to set the low carbon gas coefficient Dear Council Member [name], I'm writing as [a resident / the board president] of [building], a [co-op / Mitchell-Lama / rent-regulated] building of [N] units at [address]. We support Local Law 97 as written. Under the law we face an estimated $[X] in annual penalties beginning in [year] unless we cut our reported emissions, and the law itself gives us a way to do that. Section 28-320.3.1.1(7) says emissions from other energy sources "shall be determined by the commissioner and promulgated into rules of the department." Low carbon gas already reaches our building through our regular gas service. Once the number is set, we can comply with what we have. Without one, our only path is rip-and-replace electrification that our residents can't afford. I'm respectfully asking you to request that the Department of Buildings determine the coefficient for low carbon gas, as the law directs. This is an affordability issue for the New Yorkers who can least afford a special assessment or a rent increase. I'd be grateful for a written response, and our board is glad to meet with your staff. Respectfully, [name, title, building, contact]
Board or tenant association resolution
RESOLVED, that the Board of Directors of [building], representing [N] households, requests that the New York City Department of Buildings determine and promulgate a greenhouse gas coefficient for low carbon gas as required by Administrative Code section 28-320.3.1.1(7), so that this building may comply with Local Law 97 using its existing heating plant; and that copies of this resolution be sent to the Commissioner of Buildings, the Mayor, the Speaker of the City Council, the Chair of the Council Committee on Housing and Buildings, and this building's Council Member. Adopted [date].
Know your rights
You don't have to electrify. Nothing in Local Law 97 requires it. The law sets an emissions limit and leaves the method to you.
You can buy low carbon gas from anyone who sells it. Ask your energy consultant, an energy broker, your gas supplier, Con Edison or National Grid, or search "renewable natural gas New York." When you call, ask three things: Will you deliver it to my building through our regular gas service? Will you put its carbon score in writing? Is this actual gas, or just a certificate? Keep your contracts and that carbon score on file. The City will ask for them once it sets the number.
You don't have to buy ours. We hope you choose StandardRNG, but you having a choice matters more.
Read the law yourself
Don't take our word for it. Here's the law, the section that puts the "number" on the Commissioner's desk, and the DOB rule where the Department has already set that number for biofuels.
Take the flyer with you
From the campaign
Notes, dates and news from the team on the ground. Check back; this section changes often.
Latest update
November 6: we're moving forward together. We've withdrawn our lawsuit and moved on from the NYC Accelerator to focus on building projects and delivering clean fuel. Read more.
From Albany
November 5: New York State made $27 million available for clean fuel projects, including renewable natural gas. Read the Governor's announcement.
In the news
Coverage and letters will be posted here as they come in.
Learn about the company at standardcarbon.com and about the fuel at standardcarbon.com/standard-rng.
