Mamdani Forces Amazon to Hand Over $9m in Unpaid Clean Air Fines

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has collected $9m (£6.6m) in unpaid fines from Amazon, which has been violating clean air regulations by leaving engines running on its parked vehicles.

His office announced the recovery of the money last week, days after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos appeared to criticise Mamdani’s push to tax the rich in order to fund education.

“Amazon is worth $2tn. Yet it did not deign to pay the millions of dollars it racked up in unpaid fines as its trucks illegally polluted our air and forced New Yorkers to breathe in their exhaust,” Mamdani said in a statement.

“We are going to collect every dollar they owe the people of this city.”

Lisa F Garcia, commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, said: “I applaud Mayor Mamdani and the Department of Finance for securing more than $9m in illegal idling fines from Amazon, which has long been among the top worst idling offenders in the city.”

In an interview with broadcaster CNBC last week, Bezos criticised New York’s public education system and said that even doubling his taxes would not help local teachers.

​“If we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system, your packages would take six weeks to arrive,” he said.

Mamdani’s administration has prioritised enforcing existing laws against large companies as part of a bid to rein in corporate power and improve public finances. Earlier this month, his office said it had secured a record-breaking $31m (£22.9m) in penalties against negligent landlords.