Brian Kavanagh

Senator Brian Kavanagh represents 320,000 residents of Lower Manhattan in the New York State legislature, chairs the Senate Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development, and serves on the Environmental Conservation and Energy Committees, and the Board of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators.

His environmental sustainability work has included cosponsoring and helping secure enactment of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (2019), which requires huge cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, investments in renewable energy, creation of green jobs, and funding for environmental justice. He is the lead sponsor in 2023 of the All-Electric Building Act, to ban construction of new buildings powered by fossil fuels, with limited exceptions, and legislation to require New York to pursue dramatic increases in energy generation from offshore wind. He was also an early champion of the successful effort to restrict hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas extraction in New York.

He has worked on various extended producer responsibility (EPR) and recycling initiatives, enacting laws to require EPR for carpeting (2022) and collection of film plastic (2014) and rechargeable batteries (2010). In 2023, he is the co-prime sponsor of a bill to require EPR for packaging and paper, and has introduced EPR legislation for textiles, mattresses, lighting containing mercury, heat pumps and other appliances containing refrigerants, and other products.

He has sponsored legislation to prevent exposure to toxins, increasing fines for contaminating public water supplies (2008), and proposing bills on lead poisoning and harmful food additives, and has facilitated community engagement and oversight for projects involving clean-up of toxic sites and other sensitive local environmental issues.

He has been involved in the decade-long debate about how to ensure resiliency in New York communities, especially in Lower Manhattan, which was extensively flooded during Superstorm Sandy, and has worked to enact a safety program for illegally occupied basement apartments, after Hurricane Ida’s fatal flooding.

In addition to sustainability, Senator Kavanagh’s work focuses on promoting access to stable affordable housing for all New Yorkers and preventing gun violence. He has enacted major legislation in each of these areas. Before serving in the legislature, he worked in policy and management positions in the administrations of three New York City Mayors and at the City Council, and as an attorney at two large law firms. He received a B.A. in Politics from Princeton University and a J.D. from New York University Law School, where he was a Dean’s Scholar.