Environmental Advocates of New York

the [green] capitol insider

May 17, 2010

Welcome to Environmental Advocates of New York’s online newsletter from the State Capital, your source for environmental news. We update you every other week with insider news and observations carefully gleaned from the halls of the Capitol.

DOUBLING DOWN: THE FURLOUGH LOW-DOWN

In an effort to save cash, Governor Paterson announced a few weeks ago that he would include a one-day-a-week furlough plan for certain New York State employees in his emergency spending bills — the bills that keep New York State government running without a budget. Although the Legislature held their noses and signed-off on the Governor’s legislation that would have forced 100,000 state workers to take mandatory unpaid leaves of absence, a federal judge swiftly intervened at the request of the public employees unions. On May 10, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Kahn issued a temporary restraining order and blocked the plan that would have taken effect today.

And it’s a good thing too, especially for the state’s primary environmental agency, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Environmental Advocates of New York learned that under the Governor’s plan, oil spill responders would have been furloughed, despite their clear public health and safety function. If the furloughs were to go into effect, DEC regional offices would have had drastically reduced capacity to respond to oil spills on certain days. Currently, the DEC employs 90 people across the state to oversee chemical, pesticide and oil spills.

Given all the attention paid to the ecological disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, the proposal to furlough these critical state workers is startling.

We don’t want a massive oil spill in our Great Lakes, or off Long Island Sound, or New York Harbor. New York/New Jersey has the biggest harbor on the east coast; an oil spill from one of the thousands of ships arriving each day would devastate the region, and without the proper number of staff, would be almost impossible to clean up. The agency needs the staff available to safely and effectively clean up contamination. Under Governor Paterson’s plan, we won’t have that guarantee. Talk about risky business.

Now the unions and the Governor’s lawyers get to fight this out in court. Let’s hope furloughs get axed once and for all and keep New York State from playing oil spill roulette.

Read more about the furloughs here.

And here, & here, & here.

MID-TERM GRADES: NEW YORK STATE SENATE REPORT CARD

Last week our sister organization, EPL/Environmental Advocates, released mid-term report cards for the New York State Senate. It might not surprise some that 29 State Senators and nearly 90 percent of the Republican minority conference are currently receiving failing grades for 2010.

To date, the Senator’s scores are largely influenced by their individual votes on the Environmental Access to Justice Act, a bill that would restore the right of citizens to challenge the results of environmental reviews, a high-priority bill for the environmental community in 2010. The bill was defeated on the floor of the Senate on April 22 by a vote of 32 to 29. The 32 “No” votes were a major factor in separating the green villains from the superstars.

The Republican minority in the Senate has a house average of 48, with 26 of the 30 members receiving failing grades. Among those failing is Senator Vincent Leibell (R-Brewster), who has a score of 50. Senator Leibell has long been a champion of measures to protect water quality, parklands, and drinking water, but his failure to vote for the Environmental Access to Justice Act in April is a black mark on his green credentials.

A few Democrats should also be very concerned about their green grades. Among them are Senators Darrel Aubertine (D-Watertown), William Stachowski (D-Buffalo) and David Valesky (D-Syracuse) who all have scores of 60, bringing their conference’s average down to 86. All three Senators voted against the Environmental Access to Justice Act.

But EPL/Environmental Advocates pointed out that there’s still time for these three Senators, and others, to improve their grades. A favorable vote on the Global Warming Pollution Control Act—a bill that would reduce climate change pollution from all sources until total greenhouse gas emissions are reduced 80 percent by the year 2050—and votes to restore the State’s Environmental Protection Fund and securing agency funding in the budget, as well as keeping state parks open, would give under-performing legislators a munch-needed boost in this year’s Voters’ Guide, due out in October.

Click here to see your Senator’s score.

Click here to read more.

INTRODUCING: THE AMERICAN POWER ACT

After nearly a year spent trying to craft a comprehensive climate and energy bill, draft legislation made its debut in the United States Senate last week. The American Power Act, sponsored by Senators John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut), is a 987-page document that its sponsors claim limits climate-altering emissions, reduce oil imports and creates millions of new energy-related jobs.

The bill’s overall goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and by 83 percent by 2050. The reduction targets generally match those in a House bill passed last year, although the 2020 target is slightly less ambitious.

But with the defection of the bill’s Republican sponsor, Senator Lindsey Graham (R – South Carolina), prior to introduction the big question is whether the bill still has legs. And the oil spill in the Gulf continues to cast a long black shadow over bill’s give-aways to fossil fuel companies contained in the Senate draft.

What is clear is that the U.S. Senate needs to pass the strongest climate change package possible and that this bill is far from final. New Yorkers should be pressing their Senators to up the ante.